A Writer’s Diary

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A WRITER’S DIARY

Fiction

BY VIRGINIA WOOLF

KEW GARDENS
THE VOYAGE OUT
NIGHT AND DAY

Jacob’s room

MRS. DALLOWAY
TO THE LIGHTHOUSE
ORLANDO
THE WAVES
THE YEARS
BETWEEN THE ACTS
A HAUNTED HOUSE

Biography

FLUSH
ROGER FRY

Crituismy eU.

THE COMMON READER: HRST SERIES

THE COMMON READER: SECOND SERIES

A ROOM OF one’s OWN

THREE GUINEAS

THE DEATH OF THE MOTH

THE MOMENT

THE captain’s DEATH BED

'Tllie ."tes itiid.

O

iDkcibg., Kimia It O®. ilM..

CONTENTS

Glossary of Names used in the diary

PaP€ vi

Preface

vii

1918

I

1919

7

1920

23

1921

30

1922

42

*923

55

*924

62

1925

7 *

1926

85

1927

103

1928

122

*929

I41

1930

*52

* 93 *

165

*932

178

*933

192

*934

2*5

*935

236

*936

263

*937

275

*938

288

*939

3*0

1940 ^

323

* 94 *

362

Chronological Bibliography

367

Index

369

V

GLOSSARY OF

NAMES USED IN THE DIARY

Angelica

Bob

Bunny

Charleston

Clive

Dadic

Desmond

Duncan

Goldie

Gordon Square

Harold

Hugh

James

Julian

L.

Lytton

Maynard

Morgan

Ncssa

Ottolinc or Olt

Quentin

Roger

Sibyl

Sydney

Tilton

Tom

Vita

Angelica Bell, daughter of Vanessa Bell,
married David Garnett
R. C. Trevelyan
David Garnett

House near Lewes occupied by Clive

and V^messa Bell, about 8 miles from

Monks House, Rodmell

Clive Bell, husband of \’’ancssa

G. W. Rylands

Desmond MacCardiy

Duncan Grant

G. Lowes Dickinson

The house 46 where the Bells lived

Harold Nicolson

Hugh Walpole

James Strachey

Julian Bell, son of Vanessa, killed in
Spain

Leonard Woolf
Lytton Strachey

Jolin Maynard (later Lord) Keynes
E. M. Forster

Vanessa Bell, sister of Virginia Woolf
Lady Ottolinc Morrell
Qpentin Bell, son of Vanessa
Roger Fry
Lady Colcfax
Sir Sydney Watcrlow
House near Lewes occupied by May-
nard and Lydia Keynes, about 8 miles
from Monks House, Rodmell
T. S. Eliot

V. SackviUc-West (Mrs. Harold Nicolson)

vi

PREFACE

In 1915 Virginia Woolf began regularly to ^^Tite a diary.
She continued to do so until 1941 and the last entr)' is four
days before her death. She did not write it regularly ever)'
day. There are sometimes entries daily for several days;
more usually there is an entry every few days and then
there \vill perhaps be a gap of a week or nvo. But the diary
gives for 27 years a consecutive record of what she did, of
the people whom she saw, and particularly of what she
thought about those people, about herself, about life, and
about the books she was writing or hoped to write. She
wrote it on blank sheets of paper (8i' by loj', i.e. techni-
cally large post quarto). At first the sheets were clipped
together with loose-leaf rings, but all the later diaries are
in bound volumes. We used to have the sheets bound up
in paper over boards, and the cover paper is nearly always
one of the coloured, patterned Italian papers which we
frequently used for binding books of poetry published by
us in The Hogarth Press and of which she was very fond.
Wc used to buy the paper for the sheets and have it bound
up in books ready for her to use, and she wrote her novels
in this kind of book as well as her diary. When she died,
she left 26 volumes of diary written in this kind of book in
her own hand.

The diary is too personal to be published as a whole
during the lifetime of many people referred to in it. It is,
I think, nearly always a mistake to publish extracts from
diaries or letters, particularly if the omissions have to be
made in order to protect the feelings or reputations of the
living. The omissions almost always distort or conceal the
true character of the diarist or letter-writer and produce
spiritually what an Academy picture does materially,
smoothing out the wrinkles, warts, frowns, and asperities.
At the best and even unexpurgated, diaries give a distorted
or one-sided portrait of the writer, because, as Virginia
Woolf herself remarks somewhere in these diaries, one gets
into the habit of recording one particular kind of mood —

vii

VIU

PREFACE

irritation or misery’, say — and of not writing one’s diary
when one is feeling the opposite. The portrait is therefore
from the start unbalanced, and, if someone then deliber-
ately removes another characteristic, it may well become
a mere caricature.

Nevertheless the present book is composed of extracts
from Virginia Woolf’s diaries. She used her diary partly,
in the normal way of diarists, to record what she did and
what she thought about people, life, and tJie universe.
But she also used it in a very individual way as a writer
and artist. In it she communed with herself about the
books she was writing or about future books which she
intended to write. She discusses the day-to-day problems
of plot or form, of character or exposition, which she
encounters in each of her books as she conceives them or
writes or revises them. Her position as an artist and the
merits of her books are a subject of dispute, and no
prudent man would claim to judge to a nicety the place
which a contemporary writer will occupy in the pantheon
of letters. Some critics arc irritated and many less sophisti-
cated readers arc bewildered by her later novels. But no
one denies that she was a serious artist and there arc many
people who, like Professor Bernard Blackstonc, have no
doubt that “she was a great artist”, tliat “she did
supremely well what no one else has attempted to do”,
and that her “world will survive as the crystal survives
under the crushing rock-masses”. ‘ And it is relevant to
what I have to say in this preface that many of the people
who cannot understand or dislike or ridicule her novels
agree that in The Common Reader and her other books of
essays she show’cd herself to be a very remarkable literary
critic.

I have been carefully through the a6 volumes of diary
and have extracted and now publish in this volume practi-
cally everything which referred to her own writing. I have
included also three other kinds of extract. The first consists
of a certain number of passages in which she is obviously
using the diary as a method of practising or tiydng out

* Virginia W^lf, by Bernard Blackslone, pages 36, 37, and 38
(British Council & Longmans, Green & Co., 1932).

PREFACE ix

the art of writing. The second consists of a few passages
which, though not directly or indirectly concerned witli
her writings, I have deliberately selected because they
give the reader an idea of the direct impact upon lier mind
of scenes and persons, i.c. of the raw material of her art.
Thirdly I have included a certain number of passages in
which she comments upon the books she was reading.

The book throws light upon Virginia Woolf’s inten-
tions, objects, and methods as a writer. It gives an unusual
psychological picture of artistic production from within.
Its value and interest naturally depend to a great c.\tent
upon the value and interest of the product of Virginia
Woolf’s art. Unless I had agreed widi Professor Black-
stone, I would not have edited and published diis book.
She was, I think, a serious artist and all her books arc
serious works of art. The diaries at least show the c.Ktra-
ordinary energy, persistence, and concentration witli
which she devoted herself to the art of writing and the
undeviating conscientiousness with which she wrote and
rewrote and again rewrote her books. IVavis seems to
me a great work of art, far and away the greatest of her
books. To the Lighthouse and Between the Acts should also, I
think, live in their own rights, while the other books,
though on a lower level of achievement are, as I said,
‘serious” and will always be worth reading and studying.

I put fonvard this opinion, not as of any value, but as an
explanation of my publishing the book.

In editing the diary I was in some doubt whether to
indicate omissions. In the end I decided not to do so as
a general rule. The omissions and the dots would have
been so continual as to worry the reader. This leads me to
revert to what I said above. The reader must remember
that what is printed in this volume is only a very small
portion of the diaries and that the extracts were embedded
in a mass of matter unconnected with Virginia Woolf’s
writing. Unless this is constantly borne in mind, the book
will give a very distorted view of her life and her character.

Virginia Woolf docs not always indicate in the diary
where she is when she is writing it and it is rarely of much
importance that the reader should know. The following

X PREFACE

facts will probably clear up any doubt in any particular
case. From 1915 to March, 1924, we lived at Hogarth
House, Richmond. This in the diary is often referred to
simply as “Hogarth”. At the same time we also had a
lease of Ashcham House, near Lewes, in Sussex, referred
to in the diary simply as “Asheham”. We used Ashcham
ordinarily only for week-ends and holidays. In 19*9
lease of Asheham House came to an end and we bought
Monks House, Rodmell, near Lewes, moving into it in
September, 1919. In 1924 we sold Hogarth House, Rich-
mond, and took a lease of 52 Tavistock Square, W.C.i,
often referred to in the diary as “Tavistock”. We lived
there from March, 1924, until August, 1939, when we
moved to 37 MeckJcnburgli Square, W.C.i. In 1940 the
house in Mccklcnburgh Square was so badly damaged
by bombs that all tlic furniture had to be removed and we
lived until Virginia Woolf’s death in 194* Monks
House.

The glossary on page vi of names of persons used in the
diary will help the reader to understand who is being
referred to in any particular passage.

Leonard Woolf

/ Januaiy, igss

1918

Monday^ August 5th

While waiting to buy a book in which to record my
impressions first of Christina Rossetti, then of Byron, I
had better write them here. For one thing I have hardly
any money left, having bought Leconte de Lisle in great
quantities. Christine has the great distinction of being a
born poet, as she seems to have known very well herself.
But if I were bringing a case against God she is one of
the first witnesses I should call. It is melancholy read-
ing. First she starved herself of love, which meant also
life; then of poetry in deference to what she thought her
religion demanded. There were two good suitors. The
first indeed had his peculiarities. He had a conscience.
She could only marry a particular shade of Christian.
He could only stay that shade for a few months at a time.
Finally he developed Roman Catholicism and was lost.
Worse still was the case of Mr. Collins — a really delightful
scholar — an unworldly recluse — a single-minded wor-
shipper of Christina, who could never be brought into
the fold at all. On this account she could only visit him
affectionately in his lodgings, which she did to the end of
her life. Poetry was castrated too. She would set herself
to do the psalms into verse; and to make all her poetry
subservient to the Christian doctrines. Consequently, as
I think, she starved into austere emaciation a very fine
original gift, which only wanted licence to take to itself
a far finer form than, shall we say, Mrs. Browning’s. She
wrote very easily; in a spontaneous childlike kind of way
one imagines, as is the case generally with a true gift; still
undeveloped. She has the natural singing power. She thinks
too. She has fancy. She could, one is profane enough to
guess, have been ribald and witty. And, as a reward for
all her sacrifices, she died in terror, uncertain of salvation.
I confess though that I have only turned her poetry over,
making my way inevitably to the ones I knew already.

I

2

A WRlTER^S DIARY

Wednesday^ August yth

Ashcham* diary drains off my meticulous observations
of flowers, clouds, beetles and the price of eggs; and,
being alone, tlicrc is no other event to record. Our tragedy
has been the squashing of a caterpillar; our excitement the
return of the servants from Lew'cs last night, laden with
all L.’s war books and the English review for me, with
Brailsford upon a League of Nations, and Katherine
Mansfield on Bliss. I threw down Bliss with the exclama-
tion, “She’s done for!” Indeed I don’t see how much
faith in her as woman or writer can sur\'ivc that sort of
story. I shall have to accept the fact, I’m afraid, that her
mind is a very thin soil, laid an inch or two deep upon
very barren rock. For Bliss is long enough to give her a
chance of going deeper. Instead she is content with super-
ficial smartness; and the whole conception is poor, cheap,
not the vision, however imperfect, of an interesting mind.
She writes badly too. And the effect was as I say, to give
me an impression of her callousness and hardness as a
human being. I shall read it again; but I don’t suppose I
shall change. She’ll go on doing this sort of thing, per-
fectly to her and Murry’s satisfaction. I’m relieved now
that they didn’t come. Or is it absurd to read all this
criticism of her personally into a story?

Anyhow I was very glad to go on with my Byron. He
has at least the male virtues. In fact. I’m amused to find
how easily 1 can imagine the effect he had upon women
— especially upon rather stupid or uneducated women,
unable to stand up to him. So many, too, would wish to
reclaim him. Ever since I was a child (as Gerllcr would
say, as if it proved him a particularly remarkable person)
I’ve had the habit of getting full of some biography and
wanting to build up my imaginary figure of the person
with every scrap of news I could find about him. During
the passion, the name of Cowper or Byron or whoever

* Ashcham House near Lewes, which we had on lease from 1913
to 1918. We used it occasionally for week-ends and in the summer
holidays. At the end of 1918 the lease came to an end and we bought
Monks Hotise, Rodmell.

NINETEEN EIGHTEEN 3

it might be, seemed to start up in the most unlikely pages.
And then, suddenly, the figure becomes distant and merely
one of the usual dead. I’m much impressed by the cx-
treme badness of B.’s poetry — such of it as Moore quotes
with almost speechless admiration. Why did they think
this Album stuff the finest fire of poetry? It reads hardly
better than L. E. L. or Ella ^Vheeler Wilcox. And they
dissuaded him from doing what he knew he could do,
which was to write satire. He came home from the East
with satires (parodies of Horace) in his bag and Childe
Harold. He was persuaded that Childe Harold was the best
poem ever written. But he never as a young man believed
in his poetry; a proof, in such a confident dogmatic
person, that he hadn’t the gift. The Wordsworths and
Keats’ believe in that as much as they believe in anything.
In his character, I’m often reminded a little of Rupert
Brooke, though this is to Rupert’s disadvantage. At any
rate Byron had superb force; liis letters prove it. He had
in many ways a very fine nature too; though as no one
laughed him out of his affectations he became more
like Horace Cole than one could wish. He could only be
laughed at by a woman, and they worshipped instead.
I haven’t yet come to Lady Byron, but I suppose, instead
of laughing, she merely disapproved. And so he became
Byronic.

Friday y August gth

In the absence of human interest, which makes us
peaceful and content, one may as well go on with Byron.
Having indicated that I am ready, after a century, to
fall in love with him, I suppose my judgment of Don Juan
may be partial. It is the most readable poem of its length
ever written, I suppose: a quality which it owes in part
to the springy random haphazard galloping nature of its
method. This method b a discovery by itself. It’s what
one has looked for in vain — an elastic shape which will
hold whatever you choose to put into it. Thus he could
write out his mood as it came to him; he could say what-
ever came into his head. He wasn’t committed to be

4 A WRITER’S DIARY

poetical; and thus escaped his evil genius of the false
romantic and imaginative. When he is serious he is sin-
cere: and he can impinge upon any subject he likes. He
writes i6 cantos without once flogging his flanks. He had,
evidently, the able witty mind of what my father Sir
Leslie would have called a thoroughly masculine nature.

I maintain that these illicit kinds of book are far more
interesting than the proper books which respect illusions
devoutly all the time. Still, it doesn’t seem an easy ex-
ample to follow; and indeed like all free and easy things,
only the skilled and mature really bring them off success-
fully. But Byron was full of ideas — a quality that gives his
verse a toughness and drives me to little excursions over
the surrounding landscape or room in the middle of my
reading. And tonight 1 shall have the pleasure of flnishing
him — though why considering that I’ve enjoyed almost
every stanza, this should be a pleasure I really don’t know.
But so it always is, whether the book’s a good book or a
bad book. Maynard Keynes admitted in the same way
that he always cuts off the advertisements at the end with
one hand while he’s reading, so as to know exactly how
much he has to get through.

Monday^ August igtk

I finished by the way the Electra of Sophocles, which
has been dragging on down here, though it’s not so fear-
fully difhcult after all. The thing that always impresses
me fresh is the superb nature of the story. It seems hardly
possible not to make a good play of it. This perhaps is the
result of having traditional plots which have been made
and improved and freed from superfluities by the polish
of innumerable actors and authors and critics, till it be-
comes like a lump of glass worn smooth in the sea. Also, if
everyone in the audience knows beforehand what is going
to happen, much finer and subtler touches will tell, and
words can be spared. At any rate my feeling always is that
one can’t read too carefully, or attach enough weight to
every line and hint; and that the apparent bareness is
only on the surface. There does, however, remain the

NINETEEN EIGHTEEN 5

question of reading the wrong emotions into the text. I am
generally humiliated to find how much jebb is able to see;
my only doubt is whether he doesn’t see too much — as I
think one might do with a bad modem English play if
one set to work. Finally, the particular charm of Greek
remains as strong and as difficult to account for as ever.
One feels the immeasurable difference between the text
and the translation with the first words. The heroic woman
is much the same in Greece and England. She is of the
type of Emily Bronte. Clytaemnestra and Electra are
clearly mother and daughter, and therefore should have
some sympathy, though perhaps sympathy gone ^\Tong
breeds the fiercest hate. E. is the type of woman who
upholds the family above ever^’thing; the father. She has
more veneration for tradition than the sons of the house;
feels herself born of the father’s side and not of the
mother’s. It’s strange to notice how although the con-
ventions are perfectly false and ridiculous, they never
appear petty or undignified as our English conventions
are constantly made to do. Electra lived a far more hedged
in life than the women of the mid-Victorian age, but this
has no effect upon her, except in making her harsh and
splendid. She could not go out for a walk alone; with us
it would be a case of a maid and a hansom cab.

Tuesdayy September loth

Though I am not the only person in Sussex who reads
Milton, I mean to write down my impressions of Paradise
Lost while I am about it. Impressions fairly well describes
the sort of thing left in my mind. I have left many riddles
unread. I have slipped on too easily to taste the full
flavour. However I see, and agree to some extent in be-
lieving, that this full flavour is the reward of highest
scholarship. I am struck by the extreme difference between
this poem and any other. It lies, I think, in the sublime
aloofness and impersonality of the emotion. I have never
read Cowper on the sofa, but I can imagine that the sofa
is a degraded substitute for Paradise Lost. The substance
of Milton is all made of wonderful, beautiful and masterly

6 A WRITER’S DIARY

descriptions of angels’ bodies, battles, flights, dwelling
places. He deals in horror and immensity and squalor
and sublimity but never in the p>assions of the human
heart. Has any great poem ever let in so little light upon
one’s own joys and sorrows? I get no help in judging life;
I scarcely feel that Milton lived or knew men and women;
except for the peevish personalities about marriage and the
woman’s duties. He was the first of the masculinists, but
his disparagement rises from his own ill luck and seems
even a spiteful last word in his domestic quarrels. But how
smooth, strong and elaborate it all is! What poetry? I can
conceive that even Shakespeare after this would seem a
little troubled, personal, hot and imperfect. I can conceive
that this is the essence, of which almost all other poetry
is the dilution. The inexpressible fineness of the style, in
which shade after shade is perceptible, would alone keep
one gazing into it, long after the surface business in
progress has been despatched. Deep down one catches
still further combinations, rejections, felicities and mas-
teries. Moreover, though there is nothing like Lady
Macbeth’s terror or Hamlet’s cry, no pity or sympathy
or intuition, the figures are majestic; in them is summed
up much of what men thought of our place in the universe,
of our duty to God, our religion.

Monday, January soth

I mean to copy this out when I can buy a book, so I
omit the flourishes proper to the new year. It is not money
this time that I lack, but the capacity, after a fortnight
in bed, to make the journey to Fleet Street. Even the
muscles of my right hand feel as I imagine a serv’ani’s
hand to feel. Curiously enough, I have the same stiffness
in manipulating sentences, though by rights I should be
better equipped mentally now than I was a month ago.
The fortnight in bed was the result of having a tooth
out, and being tired enough to get a headache — a long
dreary affair, that receded and advanced much like a
mist on a January day. One hour’s ^vTiting daily is my
allowance for the next few weeks; and having hoarded it
this morning I may spend part of it now, since L. is out
and I am much behindhand with the month of January.
I note however that this diary writing docs not count as
writing, since I have just re-read my year’s diary and am
much struck by the rapid haphazard gallop at which it
swings along, sometimes indeed jerking almost intoler-
ably over the cobbles. Still if it were not written rather
faster than the fastest type-^vriting, if I stopped and took
thought, it would never be written at all; and the advan-
tage of the method is that it sweeps up accidentally several
stray matters which I should exclude if I hesitated, but
which are the diamonds of the dustheap. If Virginia
Woolf at the age of 50, when she sits down to build her
memoirs out of these books, is unable to make a phrase
as it should be made, 1 can only condole with her and
remind her of the existence of the fireplace, where she has
my leave to bum these pages to so many black films with
red eyes in them. But how I envy her the task I am pre-
paring for her! There is none I should like better. Already
my 37th birthday next Saturday is robbed of some of its
terrors by the thought. Partly for the benefit of this elderly

8 A WRITER’S DIARY

lady (no subterfuges will then be possible: 50 is elderly,
though I anticipate her protest and agree that it is not old)
partly to give the year a solid foundation I intend to
spend the evenings of this week of captivity in making
out an account of my friendships and their present condi-
tion, with some account of my friends’ characters; and to
add an estimate of their work and a forecast of their future
works. The lady of 50 will be able to say how near to the
truth I come; but I have written enough for tonight (only
15 minutes, I see).

Wednesday^ March 5th

Just back from four days at Asheham and one at
Charleston.* I sit waiting for Leonard to come in, with a
brain still running along the railway lines, which unfits it
for reading. But oh, dear, what a lot I’ve got to read! The
entire works of Mr. James Joyce, Wyndham Lewis, Ezra
Pound, so as to compare them with the entire works of
Dickens and Mrs. Gaskell; besides that George Eliot; and
finally Hardy. And I’ve just done Aunt Anny,*ona really
liberal scale. Yes, since I Nvrote last she has died, a week
ago today to be precise, at Freshwater, and was buried up
at Hampstead yesterday, where six or seven years ago we
saw Richmond buried in a yellow fog. I suppose my feel-
ing for her is half moonshine; or rather half reflected from
other feelings. Father cared for her; she goes down the
last, almost, of that old 19th Century Hyde Park Gate
world. Unlike most old ladies she showed very little
anxiety to see one; felt, I sometimes think, a little painfully
at the sight of us, as if we’d gone far off and recalled
unhappiness, which she never liked to dwell on. Also,
unlike most old Aunts she had the wits to feel how sharply
we differed on current questions; and this, perhaps, gave
her a sense, hardly existing with her usual circle, of age,
obsoleteness, extinction. For myself, though she need have
had no anxieties on this head, since I admired her sin-
cerely; but still the generations certainly look very dif-

* The hoiuc near Firlc rented by Vanessa Bell, Virginia’s sister.

*Lady Ritchie, Thackeray’s daughter.

NINETEEN NINETEEN 9

ferent ways. Two or perhaps three years ago L. and I went
to see her; found her much diminished in size, wearing a
feather boa round her neck and scaled alone in a drawing
room almost the copy, on a smaller scale, of the old
drawing room; the same subdued pleasant air of the
i8th Century and old portraits and old china. She had our
tea waiting for us. Her manner was a little distant, and
more than a little melancholy. I asked her about father,
and she said how those young men laughed in a “loud
melancholy way” and how their generation was a very
happy one, but selfish; and how ours seemed to her fine
but very terrible; but we hadn’t any writers such as they
had. “Some of them have just a touch of that quality;
Bernard Shaw has; but only a touch. The pleasant thing
was to know them all as ordinary people, not great men.”
And then a story of Carlyle and father; Carlyle saying he’d
as soon wash his face in a dirty puddle as write journalism.
She put her hand down, I remember, into a bag or box
standing beside the fire, and said she had a novel, three
quarters written, but couldn’t finish it. Nor do I suppose
it ever was finished; but I’ve said all I can say, dressing it
up a trifle rosily, in The Times tomorrow. I have written to
Hester, but how I doubt the sincerity of my own emotion!

Wednesday f March igth

Life piles up so fast that I have no time to witc out the
equally fast rising mound of reflections, which I always
mark down as they rise to be inserted here. I meant to
write about the Barnetts and the peculiar rcpulsiveness
of those who dabble their fingers self approvingly in the
stuff of others’ souls. The Barnetts were at any rate
plunged to the elbow; red handed if ever philanthropists
were, which makes them good examples; and then, un-
questioning and unspeculative as they were, they give
themselves away almost to the undoing of my critical
faculty. Is it chiefly intellectual snobbery that makes me
dislike them? Is it snobbery to feel outraged when she
says “Then I came close to the Great Gates” — or reflects
that God — good, devil = evil. Has this coarseness of

lO

A WRITER’S DIARY

grain any necessary connection with labour for one’s kind?
And then the smug vigour of their self-satisfaction! Never
a question as to the right of what they do — always a kind
of insensate forging ahead until, naturally, their under-
takings arc all of colossal size and portentous prosperity.
Moreover, could any woman of humour or insight quote
such paeans to her own genius? Perhaps the root of it all
lies in the adulation of the uneducated, and the easy
mastery of the will over the poor. And more and more I
come to loathe any dominion of one over another; any
leadership, any imposition of the will. Finally, my literary
taste is outraged by the smooth way in which the tale is
made to unfold into fullblown success, like some profuse
peony. But I only scratch the surface of what I feel about
these two stout volumes.*

Thursday^ March 2yth

. . . Night and Day which L. has spent the past two
mornings and evenings in reading. I own that his verdict,
finally pronounced this morning, gives me immense
pleasure: how far one should discount it, I don’t know. In
my own opinion N. d? Z). is a much more mature and
finished and satisfactory book than The Voyage Out; as it
has reason to be. I suppose I lay myself open to the charge
of niggling with emotions that don’t really matter. I cer-
tainly don’t anticipate even two editions. And yet I can’t
help thinking that, English fiction being what it is, I com-
pare for originality and sincerity rather well with most of
the moderns. L. finds the philosophy very melancholy.
It too much agrees v«th what he was saying yesterday.
Yet, if one is to deal with people on a large scale and say
what one thinks, how can one avoid melancholy? I don’t
admit to being hopeless though: only the spectacle is a
profoundly strange one; and as the current answers don’t
do, one has to grope for a new one, and the process of
discarding the old, when one is by no means certain what
to put in their place, is a sad one. Still, if you think of it,

* Rtv. Canon S. A. Barnett; His life^ Work and Friends. By his wife,
Mrs. Barnett, C.B.E. (Murray).

NINETEEN NINETEEN it

what answers do Arnold Bennett or Thackeray, for in-
stance, suggest? Happy ones — satisfactory solutions —
answers one would accept, if one had the least respect
for one’s soul? Now 1 have done my last odious piece of
typewriting, and when I have scribbled this page, I shall
write and suggest Monday as the day for coming up to
lunch wth Gerald.* I don’t suppose I’ve ever enjoyed
any writing so much as I did the last half ofv^7^/i/ and Day.
Indeed, no part of it taxed me as The Voyage Out did; and
if one’s own ease and interest promise anything good, I
should have hopes that some people, at least, will find it a
pleasure. I wonder if I shall ever be able to read it again?
Is the time coming when I can endure to read my own
writing in print without blushing — shivering and wishing
to take cover?

Wednesday^ April 2nd

Yesterday I took Might and Day up to Gerald and had a
little half domestic half professional interview with him
in his office. I don’t like the Clubman’s view of literature.
For one thing it breeds in me a violent desire to boast:
I boasted of Ncssa and Clive and Leonard; and how much
money they made. Then we undid the parcel and he liked
the title but found that Miss Maud Anncslcy has a book
called Nights and Days — which may make difficulties with
Mudies. But he was certain he would wish to publish it;
and we were altogether cordial; and I noticed how his
hair is every blade of it white, with some space between
the blades; a very sparsely sown field. I had tea at Gordon
Square.

Saturday, April 12th

These ten minutes are stolen from Moll Flanders, which I
failed to finish yesterday in accordance with my time
sheet, yielding to a desire to stop reading and go up to
London. But I saw London, in particular the view of
white city churches and palaces from Hungerford Bridge

^ Gerald Duckworth^ publisher, half*brother ofV. W.

,2 A WRITER’S DIARY

through the eyes of Defoe. I saw the old women selling
matches through his eyes; and the draggled girl skirting
round the pavement of St. James’s Square seemed to me
out Roxana or Moll Flanders. Yes, a great writer surely
to be there imposing himself on me after qoo years.
A great writer — and Forster * has never read his books!

I was beckoned by Forster from the Library as I
approached. VVe shook hands very cordially; and yet I
always feel him shrinking sensitively from me, as a
woman, a clever woman, an up to date woman. Feeling
this I commanded him to read Defoe, and left him, and
went and got some more Defoe, having bought one volume
at Bickers on the way.

Thursday^ April lyth

However one may abuse the Stracheys their minds
remain a source of joy to the end; so sparkling, definite
and nimble. Need I add that I reserve the qualities I most
admire for people who are not Stracheys? It is so long
since I have seen Lytton that 1 take my impression of
him too much from his writing, and his paper upon
Lady Hester Stanhope was not one of his best. I could fill
this page with gossip about people’s articles in the
Athenaeum\ since I had tea with Katherine • yesterday
and Murry * sat there mud*coIoured and mute, livening
only when we talked his shop. He has the jealous partiality
of a parent for his offspring already. I tried to be honest,
as if honesty were part of my philosophy, and said how I
disliked Grantorto on whistling birds, and Lytton and
so on. The male atmosphere is disconcerting to me. Do
they distrust one? despise one? and if so why do they sit
on the whole length of one’s visit? The truth is that when
Murry says the orthodox masculine thing about Eliot,
for example, belittling my solicitude to know what he
said of me, I don’t knuckle under; I think what an abrupt
precipice cleaves asunder the male intelligence, and how
they pride themselves upon a point of view which much
resembles stupidity. I find it much easier to talk to

*E. M. Forster. * Katherine Mansfield. *J. Middleton Murry,

NINETEEN NINETEEN 13

Katherine; she gives and resists as I expect lier to; \vc
cover more ground in much less time; but I respect Murr>'.
I wish for his good opinion. Heinemann has rejected
K. M.’s stories; and she was oddly hurt tliat Roger had
not invited her to his party. Her hard composure is much
on the surface.

Easter Sunday^ April 20th

In the idleness which succeeds any long article, and
Defoe is the second leader tliis month, I got out this diary
and read, as one always docs read one’s own writing,
with a kind of guilty intensity. I confess that the rough
and random style of it, often so ungrammatical, and
crying for a word altered, afflicted me somewhat. I am
trying to tell whichever self it is that reads this here-
after that I can write very much better; and take no
time over this; and forbid her to let the eye of man behold
it. And now 1 may add my little compliment to the cfTcci
that it has a slapdash and vigour and sometimes hits an
unexpected bulls eye. But what is more to the point is
my belief that the habit of writing thus for my own eye
orily is good practice. It loosens the ligaments. Never
mind the misses and the stumbles. Going at such a pace
as 1 do 1 must make the most direct and instant shots at
my object, and thus have to lay hands on words, choose
them and shoot them with no more pause than is needed
to put my pen in the ink. I believe that during the past
year I can trace some increase of ease in my professional
writing which I attribute to my casual half hours after tea.
Moreover there looms ahead of me the shadow of some
kind of form which a diary might attain to. I might in
the course of time learn what it is that one can> make of
this loose, drifting material of life; finding another use
for it than the use I put it to, so much more consciously
and scrupulously, in fiction. What sort of diary should I
like mine to be? Something loose knit and yet not slovenly,
so elastic that it will embrace any thing, solemn, slight
or beautiful that comes into my mind. I should like it to
resemble some deep old desk, or capacious hold-all, in

14 A WRITER’S DIARY

which one flings a mass of odds and ends without looking
them through. I should like to come back, after a year or
two, and find that the collection had sorted itself and
refined itself and coalesced, as such deposits so mysteri-
ously do, into a mould, transparent enough to reflect the
light of our life, and yet steady, tranquil compounds with
the aloofness of a work of art. The main requisite, I think
on rc-rcading my old volumes, is not to play the part of
censor, but to write as the mood comes or of anything
whatever; since I was curious to find how I went for
things put in haphazard, and found the significance to
lie where I never saw it at the time. But looseness quickly
becomes slovenly. A little effort is needed to face a char-
acter or an incident which needs to be recorded. Nor
can one let the pen write without guidance; for fear of
becoming slack and untidy like Vernon Lee. Her liga-
ments are too loose for my taste.

Mondayy May 12th

VVe arc in the thick of our publishing season; Murry,
Eliot * and myself arc in the hands of the public this
morning. For this reason, perhaps, I feel slightly but
decidedly depressed. I read a bound copy of ICew Gardens
through; having put off the evil task until it was complete.
The result is vague. It seems to me slight and short; I don’t
see how the reading of it impressed Leonard so much.
According to him it is the best short piece I have done yet;
and this judgment led me to read the Mark on tfu Wall
and I found a good deal of fault with that. As Sydney
Watcrlow once said, the worst of writing is that one
depends so much upon praise. I feel rather sure that I
shall get none for this story; and I shall mind a little.
Unpraised, I find it hard to start writing in the morning;
but the dejection lasts only 30 minutes, and once I start
I forget all about it. One should aim, seriously, at dis-
regarding ups and downs; a compliment here, silence
there; Murry and Eliot ordered, and not me; the central
fact remains stable, which is the fact of my own pleasure

* T. S. EUot.

NINETEEN NINETEEN 15

in the art. And these mists of the spirit have other causes,
I expect; though they arc deeply hidden. There is some
ebb and flow of the tide of life which accounts for it;
though what produces either ebb or flow Tm not sure.

Tuesday^ June loth

I must use up the fifteen minutes before dinner in
going on again, in order to make up the great gap. We
are just in from the Club; from ordering a reprint of the
Mark on the Wall at the Pelican Press; and from tea with
James. His news is that Maynard in disgust at the peace
terms has resigned, kicked the dust of office off him and
is now an academic figure at Cambridge. But I must really
sing my own praises, since I left off at the point when we
came back from Asheham to find the hall table stacked,
littered, with orders for Kew Gardens. They strewed the
sofa and we opened them intermittently through dinner
and quarrelled, I’m sorry to say, because we were both
excited, and opposite tides of excitement coursed in us,
and they were blown to waves by the critical blast of
Charleston. All these orders — 150 about, from shops and
private people — come from a review in the Lit. Sup. pre-
sumably by Logan, in which as much praise was allowed
me as I like to claim. And 10 days ago I was stoically
facing complete failure! The pleasure of success was con-
siderably damaged, first by our quarrel, and second by the
necessity of getting some 90 copies ready, cutting covers,
printing labels, glueing backs, and finally despatching,
which used up all spare time and some not spare till this
moment. But how success showered during those days!
Gratuitously, too, I had a letter from Macmillan in New
York, so much impressed by The Voyage Out that they
want to read Might and Day. I think the nerve of pleasure
easily becomes numb. I like little sips, but the psychology
of fame is worth considering at leisure. I fancy one’s
friends take the bloom off. Lytton lunched here on
Saturday with the Webbs, and when I told him my various
triumphs, did I imagine a little shade, instantly dispelled,
but not before my rosy fruit was out of the sun. \Vell, I

j6 a WRITER’S DIARY

treated his triumphs in much the same way. I can’t feel
gratified when he expatiates upon a copy of Eminent
Victorians lined and initialled “M” or H by Mr. or
Mrs. Asquith. Yet clearly the thought produced a com-
fortable glow in him. The luncheon was a success. We ate
in the garden and Lytton sported very gracefully and yet
with more than his old assurance over the conversation.
“But I’m not interested in Ireland ”

Saturday, July igth

One ought to say something about Peace day, I sup-
pose, though whether it’s worth taking a new nib for that
purpose I don’t know. I’m sitting wedged into the tvin-
dow and so catch almost on my head the steady drip of
rain which is pattering on the leaves. In ten minutes or
so the Richmond procession begins. I fear there tvill be
few people to applaud the town councillors dressed up to
look dignified and march through the streets. I’ve a sense
of holland covers on the chairs; of being left behind when
everyone’s in the country. I’m desolate, dusty, and dis-
illusioned. Of course we did not see the procession. We
have only marked the bins of refuse on the outskirts.
Rain held off till some half hour ago. The servants had a
triumphant morning. They stood on Vau-xhall Bridge and
saw everything. Generals and soldiers and tanks and nurses
and bands took two hours in passing. It was they said
the most splendid sight of their lives. Together with the
Zeppelin raid it tvill play a great part in the history of
the Boxall family. But 1 don’t know — it seems to me a
servants’ festival; something got up to pacify and placate
“the people” — and now the rain’s spoiling it; and perhaps
some extra treat will have to be devised for them. That’s
the reason of my disillusionment I think. There’s some-
thing calculated and politic and insincere about these
peace rejoicings. Moreover they are carried out with no
beauty and not much spontaneity. Flags are intermittent;
we have what the servants, out of snobbishness, I think,
insisted upon buying, to surprise us. Yesterday in London
the usual sticky stodgy conglomerations of people, sleepy

NINETEEN NINETEEN 17

and torpid as a cluster of drenched bees, were crawling
over Trafalgar Square, and rocking about the pavements
in the neighbourhood. The one pleasant sight I saw was
due rather to the little breath of wind than to decorative
skill; some long tongue-shaped streamers attached to the
top of the Nelson column licked the air, furled and un-
furled, like the gigantic tongues of dragons, with a slow,
rather serpentine beauty. Otherwise theatres and music-
halls were studded with stout glass pincushions which,
rather prematurely, were all radiant witliin — but surely
light might have shone to better advantage. However
night was sultry and magnificent so far as that went, and
we were kept awake some time after getting into bed,
by the explosion of rockets which for a second made our
room bright. (And now, in the rain, under a grey brown
sky, the bells of Richmond arc ringing — but church bells
only recall weddings and Christian services). I can’t deny
that I feel a little mean at writing so lugubriously; since
we’re all supposed to keep up the belief that we’re glad
and enjoying ourselves. So on a birthday, when for some
reason things have gone wrong, it was a point of honour
in the nursery to pretend. Years later one could confess
what a horrid fraud it seemed; and if, years later, these
docile herds will own up that they too saw through it,
and will have no more of it — well — should I be more
cheerful? I think the dinner at the 1917 Club, and Mrs.
Besant’s speech rubbed the gilt, if there were any grains
remaining, effectually off the gingerbread. Hobson was
sardonic. She — a massive and sulky featured old lady,
with a capacious head, however, thickly covered with
curly white hair — began by comparing London, lit up
and festive, with Lahore. And then she pitched into us for
our maltreatment of India, she, apparently, being “them”
and not “us”. But I don’t think she made her case very
solid, though superficially it was all believable, and the
1917 Club applauded and agreed. I can’t help listening to
speaking as though it were writing and thus the flowers,
which she brandished now and again, looked terribly
artificial. It seems to me more and more clear that the
only honest people are the ardsts, and that these social

,8 A WRITER’S DIARY

reformers and philanthropists get so out of hand and
harbour so many discreditable desires under the disguise
of loving their kind, that in the end there’s more to find
fault with in them than in us. But if I were one of them?

Sunday^ July 20th

Perhaps I will finish the account of the peace celebra-
tions. What herd animals we are after all!— even the
most disillusioned. At any rate, after sitting through the
procession and the peace bells unmoved, I began after
dinner to feel that if something was going on, perhaps
one had better be in it. I routed up poor L. and threw
away my Walpole. First lighting a row of glass lamps
and seeing that the rain was stopped, we went out just
before tea. Explosions had for some time promised fire-
works. The doors of the public house at the corner were
open and the room crowded; couples waltzing; songs being
shouted, wavcringly, as if one must be drunk to sing. A
troop of little boys with lanterns were parading the green,
beating sticks. Not many shops went to the expense of
electric light. A woman of the upper classes was sup-
ported dead drunk between two men partially drunk. We
followed a moderate stream flowing up the Hill. Illumin-
ations were almost extinct half way up, but we kept on
till we reached the terrace. And then we did sec something
— not much indeed, for the damp had deadened the
chemicals. Red and green and yellow and blue balls rose
slowly into the air, burst, flowered into an oval of light,
which dropped in minuter grains and expired. There were
hazes of light at different points. Rising over the Thames,
among trees, these rockets were beautiful; the light on the
faces of the crowd was strange; yet of course there was
grey mist muffling everything and taking the blaze off
the fire. It was a melancholy tiling to see the incurable
soldiers lying in bed at the Star and Garter with their
backs to us, smoking cigarettes and waiting for the noise
to be over. We were children to be amused. So at eleven
we went home and saw from my study Ealing do its best
to rejoice, and indeed one fire balloon went so high that

NINETEEN NINETEEN 19

L. believed it a star; but there were nine showing. Today
the rain has left us in no doubt that any remaining
festivities arc to be completely quenched.

Tuesday^ October 21st

This is Trafalgar day and yesterday is memorable for
the appearance of Night and Day. My six copies reached
me in the morning and five were despatched, so that 1
figure the beaks of five friends already embedded. Am I
nervous? Oddly little; more excited and pleased than
nervous. In the first place, there it is, out and done with;
then I read a bit and liked it; then I have a kind of
confidence, that the people whose judgment I value will
probably think well of it, which is much reinforced by
the knowledge that even if they don’t, I shall pick up
and start another story on my own. Of course, if Morgan
and Lytton and the others should be enthusiastic, I should
think the better of myself. The bore is meeting people who
say the usual things. But on the whole I see what I’m
aiming at; what I feel is that this time I’ve had a fair
chance and done my best; so that I can be philosophic
and lay the blame on God.

Thursday^ October 23rd

The first fhiits of Night and Day must be entered. “No
doubt a work of the highest genius” Clive Bell. Well, he
might not have liked it: he was cridcal of The Voyage Out.
I own I’m pleased: yet not convinced that it is as he says.
However, this is a token that I’m right to have no fears.
The people whose judgment I respect won’t be so enthusi-
astic as he is, but they’ll come out decidedly on that side,

I think.

Thursday y October 30tk

I have the excuse of rheumatism for not writing more;
and my hand tired of writing, apart from rheumatism.
Still, if I could treat myself professionally as a subject ^r

20 A WRITER’S DIARY

analysis I could make an interesting story of the past few
days, of my vicissitudes about N. and D. After Clives
letter came Ncssa’s — unstinted praise; on top of that
Lytton’s: enthusiastic praise; a grand triumph; a classic;
and so on; Violet’s * sentence of eulogy followed; and
then, yesterday morning, this line from Morgan “I like
it less than The Voyage Out.'' Though he spoke also of great
admiration and had read in haste and proposed re-read-
ing, this rubbed out all the pleasure of the rest. Yes, but
to continue. About 3 in the afternoon I felt happier and
easier on account of his blame than on account of the
others’ praise — as if one were in the human atmosphere
again, after a blissful roll among clastic clouds ^d cushiony
downs. Yet I suppose I value Morgan’s opinion as much
as anybody’s. Then there’s a column in The Times this
morning; high praise; and intelligent too; saying among
other things that N. and D., though it has less brilliance on
the surface, has more depth than the other; with which I
agree. I hope this week will sec me through the reviews;
I should like intelligent letters to follow; but I want to
be writing little stories; I feel a load off my mind all the
same.

Thursdayy November 6th

Sydney and Morgan d.incd with us last night. On the
whole, I’m glad I sacrificed a concert. The doubt about
Morgan and N. and D. is removed; I understand why he
likes it less than V.O.; and, in understanding, see that it is
not a criticism to discourage. Perhaps intelligent criticism
never is. All the same, 1 shirk writing it out, because I
write so much criticism. What he said amounted to this:
N. and D. is a striedy formal and classical work; that
being so one requires, or he requires, a far greater degree
of lovability in the characters than in a book like V.O.,
which is vague and universal. None of the characters in
N. and D. is lovable. He did not care how they sorted
themselves out. Neither did he care for the characters in
V.O.y but there he felt no need to care for them. Other-

* ^^olet Dickinson, an old Mend.

31

NINETEEN NINETEEN

wise, he admired practically everything; his blame docs
not consist in saying that and D. is less remarkable than
t’other. O and beauties it has in plenty — in fact, I see no
reason to be depressed on liis account. Sydney said he
had been completely upset by it and was of opinion that
I had on this occasion “brought it off”. But what a bore
I’m becoming! Yes, even old Virginia will skip a good
deal of this; but at the moment it seems important. The
Cambridge Magazine repeats what Morgan said about dis-
like of the characters; yet I am in the forefront of con-
temporary literature. I’m cynical about my figures, they
say; but directly they go into detail, Morgan, who read
the Review sitting over the gas fire, began to disagree.
So all critics split off, and the wretched author who tries
to keep control of them is torn asunder. For the first time
this many years I walked along the river bank between
ten and eleven. Yes, it’s like the shut up house I once
compared it to; the room with its dust sheets on the chairs.
The fishermen are not out so early; an empty path; but
a large aeroplane on business. We talked very rarely, the
proof being that we {I anyhow) did not mind silences.
Morgan has the artist’s mind; he says the simple things
that clever people don’t say; I find him the best of critics
for that reason. Suddenly out comes the obvious thing that
one has overlooked. He is in trouble with a novel of his
own, fingering the keys but only producing discords so far.

Friday y December 5th

Another of these skips, but I think the book draws its
breath steadily if with deliberation. I reflect that I’ve not
opened a Greek book since we came back; hardly read
ou^ide my review books, which proves that my time for
writing has not been mine at all. I’m almost alarmed
to find how intensely I’m specialised. My mind turned by
anxiety, or other cause, from its scrutiny of blank paper,
is like a lost child — wandering the house, sitting on the
bottom step to cry. Might and Day flutters about me still,
and causes great loss of time. George Eliot would never
read reviews, since talk of her books hampered her writing.

22

A WRITER’S DIARY

I begin to sec what she meant. I don’t take praise or blame
excessively to heart, but they interrupt, cast one s eyes
backwards, make one wish to explain or investigate. Last
week I had a cutting paragraph to myself in
this week Olive Hcseltine applies balm. But I had rather
write in my own way of Fout Passionatt Snails than be, as
K. M. maintains, Jane Austen over again.

19^0

Alonday^ January 26th

The day after my birthday; in fact I’m 38, well, Txe
no doubt Tm a great deal happier than I was at 28;
and happier today than I was yesterday having this
afternoon arrived at some idea of a new form for a new

novel. Suppose one thing should open out of another as

in an unwritten novel — only not for 10 pages but 200 or
so— <loesn’t that give the looseness and lightness I tvant;
doesn’t that get closer and yet keep form and speed, and
enclose everything, cver>'thing? My doubt is how far it
will enclose the human heart — Am I sufficiently mistress
of my dialogue to net it there? For I figure that the
approach will be entirely different this time: no scaffold-
ing; scarcely a brick to be seen; all crepuscular, but the
heart, the passion, humour, everything as bright as fire
in the mist. Then I’ll find room for so much — a gaiety
—an inconsequence — a light spirited stepping at my sweet
will. Whether I’m sufficiently mistress of things — that’s
the doubt; but conceivc(?) Mark on th< ]Vall, K.G. and Uh’
written Novel taking hands and dancing in unity. NVhat the
unity shall be I have yet to discover; the theme is a blank
to me; but I see immense possibilities in the form I hit
upon more or less by chance two weeks ago. I suppose
the danger is the damned egotistical self; which ruins
Joyce and Richardson to my mind: is one pliant and
rich enough to provide a wall for the book from oneself
without its becoming, as in Joyce and Richardson, narrow-
ing and restricting? My hope is that I’ve learnt my
business sufficiently now to provide all sorts of entertain-
ments. Anyhow, I must still grope and experiment but
this afternoon I had a gleam of light. Indeed, I think
from the ease with which I’m developing the unwritten
novel there must be a path for me there.

23

D

24 A WRITER’S DIARY

Wednesday, February 4th

The mornings from 12 to 1 I spend reading The Voyage
Out. I’ve not read it since July 1913. And if you ask me
what I think I must reply that I don’t know — such a
harlequinade as it is — such an assortment of patclics —
here simple and severe — here frivolous and shallow —
here like God’s truth — here strong and free flowing as I
could wish. What to make of it, Heaven knows. The
failures are ghastly enough to make my cheeks burn —
and then a turn of the sentence, a direct look ahead of me,
makes them burn in a different way. On the whole I like
the young woman’s mind considerably. How gallantly
she takes her fences — and my word, what a gift for pen
and ink! I can do little to amend, and must go down to
posterity the author of cheap witticisms, smart satires and
even, I find, vulgarisms— crudities rather — that will never
cease to rankle in the grave. Yet I see how people prefer
it to and D. I don’t say admire it more, but find it a
more gallant and inspiring spectacle.

Tuesday, March gth

In spite of some tremors I think I shall go on with this
diary for the present. I sometimes think that I have
worked through the layer of style which suited it — suited
the comfortable bright hour after tea; and the thing I’ve
reached now is less pliable. Never mind; I fancy old
Virginia, putting on her spectacles to read of March 1920
will decidedly wish me to continue. Greetings! my dear
ghost; and take heed that I don’t think 50 a very great
age. Several good books can be written still; and here’s
the bricks for a fine one. To return to the present owner
of the name, on Sunday I went up to Campden Hill to
hear the Schubert quintet — to see George Booth’s house
— to take notes for my story — to rub shoulders with re-
spectability — all these reasons took me there and were
cheaply gratified at 7/6.

Whether people see their own rooms with the devastat-
ing clearness that I see them, thus admitted once for one

NINETEEN TWENTY

25

hour, I doubt. Chill superficial scemliness; but thin as a
March glaze of ice on a pool- A sort of mercantile smug-
ness. Horsehair and mahogany is the truth of it; and the
wliitc panels, Vermeer reproductions. Omega table and
variegated curtains rather a snobbish disguise. The least
interesting of rooms; the compromise; though of course
that’s interesting too. I took against the family system.
Old Mrs. Booth enthroned on a sort of commode in
tvidow’s dress; flanked by devoted daughters; with grand-
children somehow symbolical cherubs. Such neat dull
little boys and girls. There we all sat in our furs and white
gloves.

Saturday, April loth

I’m planning to begin Jacob's Room next week with
luck. (That’s the first time I’ve written that.) It’s the
spring I have in my mind to describe; just to make this
note — that one scarcely notices the leaves out on the trees
this year, since they seem never entirely to have gone —
never any of that iron blackness of the chestnut trunks
— always something soft and tinted; such as I can’t remem-
ber in my life before. In fact, we’ve skipped a winter; had
a season like the midnight sun; a new return to full day-
light. So I hardly notice that chestnuts arc out — the little
parasols spread on our window tree; and the churchyard
grass running over the old tombstones like green water.

Thursday, April i^th

My handwriting seems to be going to the dogs. Perhaps
I confuse it with my writing. I said that Richmond '
was enthusiastic over my James article? Well, two days
ago, little elderly Walkley attacked it in The Times, said
I’d fallen into H. J.’s worst mannerisms — hardbeaten
“figures” — and hinted that I was a sentimental lady
friend. Percy Lubbock was included too; but, rightly or
wrongly, I delete the article from my mind with blushes,
and see all my writing in the least becoming light. I
^ Bruce Richmond, Editor of Tima Liferasy Supplerwrii.

26 A WRITER’S DIARY

suppose it’s the old matter of “florid gush” — no doubt a
true criticism, though the disease is my own, not caught
from H. J., if that’s any comfort. I must see to it though.
The Times atmosphere brings it out; for one thing I have
to be formal there, especially in the case of H. J., and so
contrive an article rather like an elaborate design, which
encourages ornament. Desmond, however, volunteered
admiration. I wish one could make out some rule about
praise and blame. I predict that I’m destined to have
blame in any quantity. I strike the eye; and elderly gentle-
men in particular get annoyed. An Unwritten J^ovel will
certainly be abused: I can’t foretell what line they’ll take
this time. Partly, it’s the “writing well’’ that sets people
off — and always has done, I suppose, “Pretentious” they
say; and then a woman writing well, and writing in The
Times — that’s the line of it. This slightly checks me from
beginning Jacob's Room. But I value blame. It spurs one,
even from Walkley; who is (I’ve looked him out) 65, and
a cheap little gossip, I’m glad to think, laughed at, even
by Desmond. But don’t go forgetting that there’s truth
in it; more than a grain in the criticism that I’m damnably
refined in The Times; refined and cordial; I don’t think
it’s easy to help it; since, before beginning the H. J. article,
I took a vow I’d say what I thought, and say it in my
own way. Well, I’ve written all this page and not made out
how to steady myself when the Unwritten Novel appears.

Tuesday^ May nth

It is worth mentioning, for future reference, that the
creative power which bubbles so pleasantly in beginning
a new book quiets down after a time, and one goes on
more steadily. Doubts creep in. Then one becomes re-
signed. Determination not to give in, and the sense of
an impending shape keep one at it more than anything.
I’m a little anxious. How am I to bring off this concep-
tion? Directly one gets to work one is like a person walk-
ing, who has seen the country stretching out before. I
want to write nothing in this book that I don’t enjoy
writing. Yet writing is always difficult.

NINETEEN TWENTY

27

Wedmsday^ June 2^rd

I was struggling, at this time, to say honestly that I
don’t think Conrad’s last book a good one. I have said it.
It is painful (a little) to find fault there, where almost
solely, one respects. I can’t help suspecting the truth to
be that he never sees anyone who knows good writing
from bad, and then being a foreigner, talking broken
English, married to a lump of a wife, he withdraws more
and more into what he once did \vcll, only piles it on
higher and higher, until what can one call it but stiff
melodrama. I would not like to find The Rescue signed
Virginia Woolf. But will anyone agree with this? Anyhow
nothing shakes my opinion of a book. Nothing — nothing.
Only perhaps if it’s the book of a young person— or of a
friend — no, even so, I think myself infallible. Haven’t I
lately dismissed Murry’s play, and exactly appraised
K.’s story, and summed up Aldous Huxley; and doesn’t it
somehow wound my sense of fitness to hear Roger mang-
ling these exact values?

Thursday^ August 5th

Let me try to say what I think as I read Don Quixote
after dinner — Principally that writing was then story tell-
ing to amuse people sitting round the fire without any
of our devices for pleasure. There they sit, women spinning,
men contemplative, and the jolly, fanciful, delightful talc
is told to them, as to grown up children. This impresses
me as the motive of D. Q,.: to keep us entertained at all
costs. So far as I can judge, the beauty and thought come
in unawares: Cervantes scarcely conscious of serious mean-
ing, and scarcely seeing D. Q. as we see him. Indeed
that’s my difficulty — the sadness, the satire, how far arc
they ours, not intended— or do these great characters
have it in them to change according to the generation
that looks at them? Much, I admit, of the talc-telling is
dull — not much, only a little at the end of the first volume,
which is obviously told as a story to keep one contented.
So little said out, so much kept back, as if he had not

28 A WRITER’S DIARY

wished to develop that side of the matter — the scene of
the galley slaves marching is an instance of what I mean.
Did C. feel the whole of the beauty and sadness of that
as I feel it? Twice I’ve spoken of “sadness”.

Is that essential to the modern view? Yet how splendid
it is to unfurl one’s sail and blow straight ahead on the
gust of the great story telling, as happens all through the
first part. I suspect the Fcrnando-Cardino-Lucinda story
was a courtly episode in the fashion of the day, anyhow
dull to me. I am also reading Ghoa le Simple — bright,
effective, interesting, yet so arid and spick and span. With
Cervantes everything there; in solution if you like; but
deep, atmospheric, living people casting shadows solid,
tinted as in life. The Eg^’ptians, like most French writers,
give you a pinch of essential dust instead, much more
pungent and effective, but not nearly so surrounding and
spacious. By God! What stuff I’m writing! Always these
images. I write Jacob every morning now, feeling each
day’s work like a fence which I have to ride at, my heart
in my mouth till it’s over, and I’ve cleared, or knocked the
bar out. (Another image, unthinking it was one. I must
somehow get Hume’s Essays and purge myself.)

Sunday^ September 26th

But I think I minded more than I let on; for somehow
Jacob has come to a slop, in the middle of that party
too, which I enjoyed so much. Eliot coming on the heel
of a long stretch of writing fiction (two months without a
break) made me listless; cast shade upon me; and the
mind when engaged upon fiction wants all its boldness and
self-confidence. He said nothing — but I reflected how
what I’m doing is probably being better done by Mr.
Joyce. Then I began to wonder what it is that I am doing;
to suspect, as is usual in such eases, that I have not thought
my plan out plainly enough — so to dwindle, niggle,
hesitate — which means that one’s lost. But 1 think my two
months of work are the cause of it, seeing that I now find
myself veering round to Evelyn and even making up a
paper upon Women, as a counterblast to Mr. Bennett’s

NINETEEN TWENTY

29

adverse views reported in the papers. T\v’o weeks ago I
made up Jacob incessantly on my walks. An odd thing,
the human mind! so capricious, faithless, infinitely shying
at shadows. Perhaps at the bottom of my mind, I feel tlial
I’m distanced by L. in every respect.

Monday, October 25th {First day of winter time)

Why is life so tragic; so like a little strip of pavement
over an abyss. I look down; I feel giddy; I wonder how I
am ever to walk to the end. But why do I feel this: Now
that I say it I don’t feel it. The fire bums; we arc going
to hear the Beggar’s Opera. Only it lies about me; I can’t
keep my eyes shut. It’s a feeling of impotence; of cutting
no ice. Here I sit at Richmond, and like a lantern stood
in the middle of a field my light goes up in darkness.
Melancholy diminishes as I write. Why then don’t I write
it down oftener? Well, one’s vanity forbids. I want to
appear a success even to myself. Yet I don’t get to the
bottom of it. It’s having no children, living away from
friends, failing to write well, spending too much on food,
growing old. I think too much of whys and wherefores;
too much of myself. I don’t like time to flap round me.
Well then, work. Yes, but I so soon tire of work — can’t
read more than a little, an hour’s writing is enough for
me. Out here no one comes in to waste time pleasantly.
If they do, I’m cross. The labour of going to London is
too great. Nessa’s children grow up, and I can’t have
them in to tea, or go to the Zoo. Pocket money doesn’t
allow of much. Yet I’m persuaded that these arc trivial
things; it’s life itself, I think sometimes, for us in our
generation so tragic — no newspaper placard without its
shriek of agony from someone. MeSwiney this afternoon
and violence in Ireland; or it’ll be the strike. Unhappiness
is everywhere; just beyond the door; or stupidity, which
is worse. Still I don’t pluck the nettle out of me. To write
Jacob's Room again will revive my fibres, I feel. Evelyn is
due; but I don’t like what I write now. And with it all
how happy I am — if it weren’t for my feeling tliat it’s a
strip of pavement over an abyss.

Tuesday^ March ist

1 am not satisfied that this book is in a healthy way.
Suppose one of my myriad changes of style is antipathetic
to the material? or does my style remain fixed? To my
mind it changes always. But no one notices. Nor can I
give it a name myself. The truth is that I have an internal,
automatic scale of values; which decides what I had better
do with my time. It dictates “this half hour must be spent
on Russian”. “This must be given to Wordsworth.” Or
“Now I’d better dam my brown stockings.” How I come
by this code of values I don’t know. Perhaps it’s the
legacy of puritan grandfathers. I suspect pleasure slightly.
God knows. And the truth is also that writing, even here,
needs screwing of the brain — not so much as Russian, but
then half the time I leam Russian I look in the fire and
think what I shall write tomorrow. Mrs. Flanders is in
the orchard. If I were at Rodmell I should have thought
it all out walking on the fiats. I should be in fine writing
trim. As it is Ralph,' Carrington • and Brett ® have this
moment gone; I’m dissipated; we dine and go out to the
Guild. I can’t settle as I should to think of Mrs. Flanders
in the orchard.

Sunday^ March 6th

Ncssa approves of Monday or Tuesday — mercifully; and
thus somewhat redeems it in my eyes. But I now wonder
a little what the reviewers will make of it — this time next
month. Let me try to prophesy. Well, The Times will be
kindly, a little cautious. Mrs. Woolf, they will say, must
beware of virtuosity. She must beware of obscurity. Her
great natural gifis etc. . . . She is at her best in the simple
lyric, or in Kew Gardens. An Unwritten Novel is hardly a
success. And as for A Society^ though spirited, it is too onc-

* Ralph Partridge. • Mn. Partridge. ■ Dorothy Brett.

30

NINETEEN TWENTY-ONE

3«

sided. Still Mrs. Woolf can always be read with pleasure.
Then, in the Westminster, Pall .Mall and other serious even-
ing papers I shall be treated very shortly with sarcasm.
The general line will be that I am becoming too much in
love with the sound of my own voice; not much in what I
write; indecently affected; a disagreeable woman. The
truth is, I expect, that I shan’t get very much attention
anywhere. Yet, I become rather well known.

Friday, April 8th. lo minutes to ii a.m.

And I ought to be writing Jacob's Room', and I can’t,
and instead I shall write down the reason why I can’t —
this diary being a kindly blankfaccd old confidante. Well,
you see, I’m a failure as a writer. I’m out of fashion: old:
shan’t do any better: have no headpiece: the spring is
everywhere: my book out (prematurely) and nipped, a
damp firework. Now the solid grain of fact is that Ralph
sent my book out to The Times for review without date of
publication in it. Thus a short notice is scrambled through
to be in “on Monday at latest”, put in an obscure place,
rather scrappy, complimentary enough, but quite unin-
telligent. I mean by that they don’t sec that Tm after
something interesting. So that makes me suspect that I’m
not. And thus I can’t get on with Jacob. Oh and Lytton’s
book is out and takes up three columns; praise I suppose.
I do not trouble to sketch this in order; or how my temper
sank and sank till for half an hour I was as depressed as
I ever am. I mean I thought of never writing any more
— save reviews. To rub this in we had a festival party at
4 ! : to congratulate Lytlon; which was all as it should be,
but then he never mentioned my book, which I suppose
he has read; and for the first time I have not his praise
to count on. Now if I’d been saluted by the Lit. Sup. as a
mystery — a riddle, I shouldn’t mind; for Lytton wouldn’t
Hike that sort of thing, but if I’m as plain as day, and
negligible?

Well, this question of praise and fame must be faced.
(I forgot to say that Doran has refused the book in
America.) How much difference docs popularity make?

32 A WRITER’S DIARY

(I’m putting clearly, 1 may add, after a pause in which
Lottie has brought in the milk and the sun has ceased
to eclipse iuelf, that I’m writing a good deal of nonsense.)
One wants, as Roger said very truly yesterday, to be kept
up to the mark; that people should be interested and
watch one’s work. What depresses me is the thought that
I have ceased to interest people — at the very moment
when, by the help of the press, I thought I was becoming
more myself. One does not want an established reputation,
such as I think I was getting, as one of our leading female
novelists. I have still, of course, to gather in all the private
criticism, which is the real trtt. When I have weighed this
I shall be able to say whether I am “interesting” or
obsolete. Anyhow, I feel quite alert enough to stop, if I’m
obsolete. I shan’t become a machine, unless a machine
for grinding articles. As I write, there rises somewhere in
my head that queer and very pleasant sense of something
which I want to write; my own point of view. I wonder,
though, whether this feeling that I write for half a dozen
instead of 1500 will pervert this? — make me eccentric —
no, I think not. But, as I said, one must face the despicable
vanity which is at the root of all this niggling and haggling.

I think the only prescription for me is to have a thousand
interests — if one is damaged, to be able instantly to let
my energy flow into Russian, or Greek, or the press, or
the garden, or people, or some activity disconnected witli
my own writing.

Sunday i April gth

I must note the symptoms of the disease, so as to know
it next time. The first day one’s miserable; the second
happy. There was an Affable Hawk ' on me in tlie Pfew
Statesman which at any rate made me feel important (and
it’s that that one wants) and Simpkin Marshall rang up
for a second fifty copies. So they must be selling. Now I
have to stand all the twitching and teasing of private
criticism which I shan’t enjoy. There’ll be Roger to-
morrow. What a bore it all is! — and then one begins to

* Desmond MacCarthy’s pseudonym.

NINETEEN TWENTY-ONE 33

wish one had put in other stories and left out the Haunted
Mouse, which may be sentimental.

Tuesday, April 12th

I must hurriedly note more symptoms of the disease

‘ medicine myself nexj

time. Well; I d worn through the acute stage and come
to the philosophic semi-depressed, indifferent, spent the
aflemoon taking parcels round the shops, going to Scot-
land Yard for my purse, when L. met me at tea and
dropped into my ear the astonishing news that Lytton
thinks the Slnng Qyartet “marvellous*’. This came through
Ralph, who doesn’t exaggerate, to whom Lytton need
not lie; and did for a moment flood every nerve with
picture, so much so that I forgot to buy my coffee and
walked over Hungerford Bridge twanging and vibrating.
A lovely blue evening too, the river sky colour. And then
there was Roger who thinks I’m on the track of real dis-
coveries and certainly not a fake. And we’ve broken the
recora of sales, so far. And I’m not nearly so pleased as I
was depressed; and yet in a state of security; fate cannot
touch me; the reviewers may snap; and the sales decrease.
What I had feared was that I was dismissed as negligible.

Friday, April 2gth

I ought to say sometliing of Lytton. I have seen him
oltcncr these last days than for a whole year perhaps We
have talked about his book and my book. This particular
conversation took place in Verreys: gilt feathers; mirrors:
blue walls and Lytton and I taking our tea and brioche
in a comer. We must have sat well over an hour.

^ night and wondered where to place

^ There’s St. Simon and La Bruyere.’’

Oh God,” he groaned.

“And Macaulay,” I added.

“Y« Macaulay,” he said. “A little better than Mac-
aulay.”

But not his man, I insisted. “More civilisation of couKe
And then you’ve only written short books.”

34

A WRITER’S DIARY

“I’m going to do George IV next, he said.

“Well, but your place,” I insisted.

“And yours?” he asked. ^ ^

“I’m the ‘ablest of living women novelists, 1 said.

“So the British Weekly says.”

“You influence me,” he said. ^ ^

And he said he could always recognise my NVTiting
though I wrote so many different styles.

“Which is the result of hard work,” I insisted. And then
we discussed histories; Gibbon; a kind of Henry James, I
volunteered.

“Oh dear no— not in the least,” he said.

“He has a point of view and sticks to it,” I said. “And
so do you. I wobble.” But what is Gibbon?

“Oh he’s there all right,” Lytton said. “Forster says
he’s an Imp. But he hadn’t many views. He believed in
‘virtue’ perhaps.”

“A beautiful word,” I said.

“But just read how the hordes of barbarians devastated
the City. It’s marvellous. True, he queer about the
early Christians — didn’t see anything in them at all. But
read him. I’m going to next October. And I’m going to
Florence, and I shall be very lonely in the evenings.”

“The French have influenced you more than the
English, I suppose,” I said.

“Yes. I have their definiteness. I’m formed.”

“I compared you with Carlyle the other day,” I said.
“I read the Reminiscences. Well, they’re the chatter of an
old toothless gravedigger compared with you; only then
he has phrases.”

“Ah yes, he has them,” said Lytton. “But I read him
to Norton and James the other day and they shouted —
they wouldn’t have it.”

“I’m a little anxious though about ‘mass’.”

“That’s my danger, is it?”

“Yes. You may cut too fine,” I said. “But it’s a mag-
nificent subject — George IV — and what fun, setting to
work on it.”

“And your novel?”

“Oh, I put in my hand and rummage in the bran pie.”

NINETEEN TWENTY-ONE 35

what’s so wonderful. And it’s all different.”
Yes, I m 20 people/*

“But one sees the whole from the outside. The ^vorst of

George IV is Uiat no one mentions the facts I want

» ^v^tten all over again. It’s all morality—”

“And battles,” I added. ^

And then we walked through the streets together, for I
had to buy coffee.

Thursday^ May 26th

I sat in Gordon Square yesterday for an hour and a half
talking to Maynard. Sometimes I wish I put down what
instead of describing them. The difficulty is
that they say so little. Maynard said he liked praise: and
always wanted to boast. He said that many men marry
m order to have a wife to boast to. But, I said, it’s odd

tliat no one is ever taken in
‘ people, should want

Lytton are passed beyond boastinu

which IS the supreme triumph. There you sit and say

^ *hc things

what bus he took? he asked. And why shouldn’t Mrs. Hil-
bc^ be sometimes the daughter of Katharine. Oh, it’s a

nn ^ y®"^ you must

yo« can leave out. The best thing you
vf ' Be said, was your Memoir on George. You
should pretend to write about real people and make it all

f n nonsense

lor il George is my climax I’m a mere scribbler).

Saturday, August i^th

as Lamb, but

on a difjerent account. His person was of a good height

fmHr’ “"I. wi light Ld

fragile. He had, jperhaps, suffered it to look old before its
time, for want of exercise. His hair was white at 50; and

36 A WRITER’S DIARY

as he generally dressed in black and had a very tranquil
demeanour, his appearance was gentlemanly, and for
several years before his death was reverend. Nevertheless,
there was something invincibly young in the look
face. It was round and fresh-coloured, with agreeable
features, and an open, indolent, goodnatured mouth.
This boy-like expression was very becoming in one who
dreamed and speculated as he did when he was really a
boy, and who passed his life apart from the rest of the
world, tvith a book and his flowers. His forehead was
prodigious, — a great piece of placid marble; — and his fine
eyes, in which all the activity of his mind seemed to con-
centrate, moved under it with a sprightly ease, as if it
was a pastime to them to carry all that thought.

“And it was pastime. Hazlitt said tliat Coleridge s
genius appeared to him like a spirit, all head and wings,
eternally floating about in etherealities. He gave me a
different impression. I fancied him a goodnatured wizard,
very fond of earth, and conscious of reposing with weight
enough in his easy chair, but able to conjure his ethere-
alities about him in the twinkling of an eye. He could also
change them by thousands and dismiss them as easily
when his dinner came. It was a mighty intellect put upon
a sensual body; and the reason he did little more with it
than talk and dream was that it is agreeable to such a
body to do little else. I do not mean that C. was a sen-
sualist in an ill sense . . which is all that I can take
the trouble to quote from Leigh Hunt’s memoirs volume H
page 223, supposing I should want to cook this up again
somewhere, L. H. was our spiritual grandfather, a free
man. One could have spoken to him as to Desmond. A
light man, I daresay, but civilised, much more so than
my grandfather in the flesh. These free, vigorous spirits
advance the world, and when one lights on them in the
strange waste of the past one says “Ah, you’re my sort” —
a great compliment. Most people who died too years ago
are like strangers. One is polite and uneasy with them.
Shelley died with H.’s copy of Lamia in his hand. H.
would receive it back from no other, and so burnt it on
the pyre. Going home fi*om the funeral? H. and Byron

NINETEEN TWENTY. ONE 37

laughed till they split. This is human nature and H
doesn t mind ouming to it. Then I like his inquisitive
human sympathies: history so dull because of its battles
and laws; and sea voyages in books so dull because the
traveller will describe beauties instead of going into the

cabins and saying what the sailors looked like, wore, eat
said; how they behaved. ’

Lady Carlisle is dead. One liJces people much better
when they re battered down by a prodigious siege of mis-
fortune than when they triumph. Such a stock of hope
and gifts she set out with, and lost everything (so they
say) and died of sleepy sickness, her 5 sons dead before
her and the war crushing her hope for humanity.

Wednesday^ August 17th

To while away the time till L. comes in from London
Fer^sson, office etc., I may as well scribble. Really I
hink my scnbbling is coming back. Here I have spent
the whole day, off and on, making up an article—for
bquire perhaps, because he wants a story, and because

nf ?K ^as told Mrs. Thomsett that I am one

01 the, it not the, cleverest women in England. It’s not

wZl as praise that has lacked, perhaps.

Y^terday I was .seized with the flux, as the Bible has it.
Dr VaUence wa.s fetched, came after dinner, and paid a

hti* ^ iT ‘ i conversation. A mild,

heavy lidded, litUe elderly man, son of a Lewes doctor

has always lived here, existing on a few broad medical

truths learnt years ago, which he applies conscientiously.

hnt7 ^ syllabi^

As both L. and I knew a good deal more than he did we

got upon general topics— old Verrall and how he starved

himse f purposely to death. “I could have had him sent

away,” said Dr. V. meditatively. “He had been away

day-quite crazy, I believe

mom^ W sitting

room We had to sit right into the chimney to get warm

to him in chess. No. He didn’t seem able

to take an interest m anything. But he was too old— too

38 A WRITER’S DIARY

weak. I couldn’t send him away.” So he starved himself

to death, pottering about his garden.

Crossing his knees and touching his little moustache
meditatively now and then, V. then asked me if I did
anything? (He thought me a chronic invalid, a fine lady).

I said I wrote. “What, novels? Light things?” Yes, novels.
“I have another lady novelist among my patients — Mrs.
Dudeny. I’ve had to buck her up — to fulfil a contract, a
contract for a new novel. She finds Lewes very noi.sy.
And then we have Marion Crawford. . . • But NIr.
Dudeny is the puzzle king. Give him any puzzle he 11
tell you the answer. He makes up the sort of puzzles shops
print on their menus. He writes columns in the papers
about puzzles.”

“Did he help to answer puzzles in the war?” I asked.

“Well, I don’t know about that. But a great many sol-
diers wrote to him— the puzzle king.” Here he crossed his
legs the opposite way. Finally he went and invited L. to
join the Lewes Chess Club, which I should very much
like to attend myself, these glimpses into different groups
always fascinating me intolerably, for I shall never join
the party of Dr. Vallencc and the puzzle king.

Thursday^ August i8th

Nothing to record; only an intolerable fit of the fidgets
to write away. Here I am chained to my rock; forced to
do nothing; doomed to let every worry, spite, irritadon
and obsession scratch and claw and come again. This is
a day that I may not walk and must not work. Whatever
book I read bubbles up in my mind as part of an article I
want to write. No one in the whole of Sussex is so miser-
able as I am; or so conscious of an infinite capacity of
enjoyment hoarded in me, could I use it. The sun streams
(no, never streams; fioods rather) down upon all the
yellow fields and the long low barns; and what wouldn’t
I give to be coming through Firle woods, dirty and hot,
with my nose turned home, every muscle tired and the
brain laid up in sweet lavender, so sane and cool, and ripe
for the morrow’s task. How I should notice everything —

NINETEEN TWENTY-ONE 39

the phrase for it coming the moment after and fitting like
a glove; and then on the dusty road, as I ground my
pedals, so my stor>' would begin telling itself; and then the
sun would be dowm; and home, and some bout of poetr\'
after dinner, half read, half lived, as if the flesh were dis-
^Ivcd and through it the flowers burst red and white
There! IVc written out half my irritation. I hear poor L.
dnvmg the lawn mower up and down, for a wife like I
am should have a latch to her cage. She bites! And he
spent all yesterday running round London for me Still
if one IS Prometheus, if the rock is hard and the gadflies
pungent, gratitude, aflcction, none of the nobler feelings
liave sway. And so this August is wasted.

Only the thought of people suflfering more than I do at
all consoles; and that is an aberration of egotism, I sup-
pose. I will now make out a lime tabic if I can to get
through these odious days.

Poor NWllc. Lenglen, finding herself beaten by Mrs.
Mallory, flung down her racquet and burst into tears.
Her vamty I suppose is colossal. I daresay she thought
that to be Mdlle. Lenglen was the greatest thing in the
world; invincible, like Napoleon. Armstrong, playing in
the test match, took up his position against the gates and
would not move, let the bowlers appoint themselves, the
whole game became farcical because there was not time
to play it out. But Ajax in the Greek play was of the same
temper— which we all agree to call heroic in him. But
then everything is forgiven to the Greeks. And I’ve not
read a line of Greek since last year, this time, too. But I
^all come back, if it’s only in snobbery; I shall be reading
Greek when I’m old; old as the woman at the cottage

*™ght be a wg in a play, it’s so while, so
thick, bcldom penetrated by love for mankind as I am, I
someurtes feel sorry for the poor who don’t read Shake-
speare, and indeed have felt some generous democratic
humbug at the Old Vic, when they played Othello and
all the poor men and women and children had him there
lor themselves. Such splendour and such poverty. I am
writing down the fidgets, so no matter if I write nonsense.
Indeed, any interference with the normal proportions of

A WRITER’S DIARY

things makes me uneasy. 1 know this room too well — tliis
view too well — I am getting it all out of focus, because I
can’t walk through it.

hlonday^ September 12th

I have finished The Wirjgs of the Dove, and make this
comment. His manipulation becomes so elaborate towards
the end that instead of feeling the artist you merely feel
the man who is posing the subject. And then I think he
loses the power to feel the crisis. He becomes merely
excessively ingenious. This, you seem to hear him saying,
is the way to do it. Now just when you expect a crisis, the
true artist evades it. Never do the thing, and it will be all
the more impressive. Finally, after all this juggling and
arranging of silk pocket handkerchiefs, one ceases to have
any feeling for the figure behind. Milly thus manipulated
disappears. He overreaches himself. And then one can
never read it again. The mental grasp and stretch are
magnificent. Not a flabby or slack sentence, but much
emasculated by this timidity or consciousness or whatever
it is. Veiy highly American, I conjecture, in the deter-
mination to be highly bred, and the slight obtuseness as
to what high breeding is.

Tuesday, November i^th

Really, really — this is disgraceful — 15 days ofNovember
spent and my diaiy none the wiser. But when nothing is
written one may safely suppose that I have been stitching
books; or we have had tea at 4 and 1 have taken my walk
afterwards; or I have had to read something for next
day’s writing, or I have been out late, come home with
stencilling materials and sat down in excitement to try
one. We went to Rodmcll, and the gale blew at us all day;
off arctic fields; so we spent our time attending to the fire.
The day before this I wrote the last words of Jacob — on
Friday November 4th to be precise, having begun it on
April 16, 1920: allowing for 6 months interv^ due to
Monday or Tuesday and illness, this makes about a year.
I have not yet looked at it. I am struggling with Henry

I

NINETEEN TWENTY-ONE 4,

James s ghost stories for The Times', have I not just laid
them down in a mood of satiety? Then I must do Hardy
t^hen I want to write a life of Newncs; then I shall have to
furbish up Jacob', and one of these days, if only I could
find energy to tackle the Paston letters, I must start
Heading: directly I’ve started Reading I shall think of an-
other novel, I daresay. So that the only question appears
to be— will my fingers stand so much scribbling?

Monday, December igth

I will add a postscript, as I wait for my parcels to be
wrapped up, on the nature of reviewing.

Mrs. Woolf? I want to ask you one or two questions
about your Henry James article.

First (only about the right name of one of the stories).

And now you use the word ‘lewd’. Of course, I don’ t wish
you to change it, but surely that is rather a strong e.xprcssion
to apply to anything by Henry James. 1 haven’t read the

sto^ lately of course— but still, my impression Is ”

Well, I thought that when I read it: one has to cro bv
one s impressions at the time.”

“But you know the usual meaning of tlic word? It is

f/ir/)'. Now poor dear old Henry James — At any rate,
think It over and ring me up in 20 minutes.” So I thought
It over and came to the required conclusion in twelve
minutes and a half. But what is one to do about it? He
made it sufficiently clear not only that he wouldn’t stand
lewd but that he didn’t much like anything else. I feel
that this becomes more often the case, and I wonder
whether to break off, with an explanation, or to pander

^1.1^ against the current. This last is prob^

ably right, but somehow the consciousness of doing that
cramps one. One writes stiffly, without spontaneity. Any-
how, for the present I shall let it be, and meet my castiga-
tion with resignation. People will complain I’m sure, and
poor Bruce fondling his paper like an only child dreads
public criticism, is stern with me, not so much for dis-
respect to poor old Henry, but for bringing blame on the
Supplement. And how much time I have wasted!

1^22

Wedmsday^ February 13th

Of my reading I will now try to make some note. First
Peacock; J^ightmnre Abbey, and Crotchet Castle. Both arc so
much better than I remember. Doubtless, Peacock is a
taste acquired in maturity. When I was young, reading
him in a railway carriage in Greece, sitting opposite
Thoby,» I remember, who pleased me immensely by
approving my remark that Meredith had got his women
from Peacock, and that they were very charming women,
then, I say, I rather had to prod my enthusiasm. Thoby
liked it straight off. I wanted mystery, romance, psycho-
logy I suppose. And now more than anything I want
beautiful prose. I relish it more and more exquisitely.
.\nd I enjoy satire more. I like the scepticism of Ids mind
more. 1 enjoy intellectuality. Moreover, fantasticality docs
a good deal better than sham psychology. One touch of
red in the check is all he gives, but I can do the rest. And
then they’re so short; and I read them in little ycUo\vish
perfectly appropriate first editions.

The masterly Scott has me by the hair once more. Old
Mortality. I’m in the middle; and have to put up with some
dull sermons; but I doubt tliat he can be dull, because
every thing is so much in keeping — even his odd mono-
chromatic landscape painting, done in smootli washes of
sepia and burnt sienna. Edith and Henry too might be
typical figures by an old master, put in exactly in the
riglit place. And Cuddie and Mausc arc as usual marching
straight aw’ay for all time, as lusty as life. But I daresay
the lighting and the story telling business prevent him
from going quite ahead with his fun as in the Antiquary,

Thursday^ February i6th

To continue — certainly the later chapters arc bare and

* Thoby Stephen, V. W.’s brother.

4«

NINETEEN TWENTY-TWO 43

gr^, ground out too palpably; authorities, I daresay, in-

original flow. And Morton is a prig; and
Edith a stick; and Evandale a brick; and the preacher’s
dulness I could take for granted. Still— still— I want to
luiow what the next chapter brings, and these gallant old
lellows can be excused practically anything.

How far can our historical portrait painters be trusted,
seeing the difficulty I have in putting down the face of
Violet Dickinson, whom I saw, for two hours, yesterday
afternoon? One hears her talking in a swinging random
way to Lottie in the hall, as she comes in. “Where’s mv
marmalade? How’s Mrs. Woolf? Better eh? Where is
she?” meanwhile putting down coat and umbrella and
not listening to a word. Then she seemed to me as she
came in gigantically tall; tailor made; with a pearl dolphin
with red tongue swinging from a black ribbon; rather
stouter; with her white face, prominent blue eyes; nose
with a chip off the end; and small beautifully aristocratic
hands. Very well; but her talk? Since nature herself could
give no account of it— since nature has wilfully left out
some screw, what chance is there for me? Such nonsense
putting old Ribblesdalc and Homer on Boards— Ly. R.
was an ^tor— refused to let a penny of hers be invested.
Your friend Miss Schreiner has gone to Bankok. Don’t
you remember all her boots and shoes in Eaton Square?
To tell the truth I remembered neither Schreiner, her
boots, or Eaton Square. Then Herman Norman is back
and says things arc in an awful mess at Teheran.

“He’s my coasin,” I said.

‘‘^w’s that?” Off we went on to Normans. Leonard
and Ralph were having tea meanwhile and sometimes
intercepted a whiff of grapeshot. Now all this, properly
strung together, would make a very amusing sketch in the
style of Jane Austen. But old Jane, if she had been in
the mood, would have given all the other things — no, I
dem t think she would; for Jane was not given to general
reflections) one can’t put in the shadows that appear
cumng round her, and giving her a sort of beauty. She
quiets down— though believing the old doctrine that talk
must be incessant — and becomes humane, generous;

A WRITER’S DIARY

shows that humorous sympathy which brings everything
into her scope — naturally; with a touch of salt and reality;
she has the range of a good novelist, bathing things in
their own atmosphere too, only all so fragmentary and
jerky. She told me she had no wish to live. “I’m very
happy,” she said. “Oh yes, very happy— But why should
I want to go on living? What is there to live for?” “Your
friends?” “My friends are all dead.” “Ozzie?” “Oh, he’d
do just as well without me. 1 should like to tidy things up
and disappear.” “But you believe in immortality?” “No.

I don’t know that I do. Dust, ashes, I say.” She laughed
of course; and yet, as I say, has somehow the all round
imaginative view which makes one believe her. Certainty
I like — is love the word for these strange deep ancient
affections, which began in youth and have got mixed up
with so many important thin^? I kept looking at her large
pleasant blue eyes, so candid and generous and hearty
and going back to Fritham and Hyde Park Gate. But this
doesn’t make a picture, all the same. I feel her somehow
to be the sketch for a woman of genius. All the fluid gifts
have gone in; but not the bony ones.

Friday^ February lyth

I’ve just had my dose of phenacetin — that is to say a
mildly unfavourable review of Monday or Tuesday reported
by Leonard from the Dial, the more depressing as I had
vaguely hoped for approval in that august quarter. It
seems as if I succeed nowhere. Yet, I’m glad to And, I
have acquired a little philosophy. It amounts to a sense
of freedom. I write what I like writing and there’s an end
on it. Moreover, heaven knows I get consideration enough.

Saturdayy February i8th

Once more my mind is distracted from the thought
of death. There was something about fame I had it in
mind to say yesterday. Oh, I think it was that I have
made up my mind that I’m not going to be popular, and
so genuinely that I look upon disregard or abuse as part

NINETEEN TWENTY-TWO 45

of my bargain. I’m to \vrite what I like; and they’re to
say what they like. My only interest as a %vriier lies I
begin to see, in some queer individuality; not in strength
or passion, or anything startling, but then I say to myself
IS not some queer individuality” precisely the quality I
respect. Peacock for example: Borrow; Donne; Douglas
m Alone, has a touch of it. Who else comes to mind
immediately? Fitzgerald’s Letters. People with this gift
go on sounding long after the melodious vigorous music
IS banal. In proof of this, I read that a small boy, given
a book by Mane Corelli for a Sunday school prize, at
onw killed himself; and the coroner remarked that one
ol her books was not what he himself would call “at all a
nice book”. So perhaps the Mighty Atom is dwindling
away and //ight and Day arising; though The Voyage Out
seems at the moment most in esteem. That encourages
n^. After 7 years next April the Dial speaks of its superb

* same; of and D. in 7 years I

shall be content; but I must wait 14 for anyone to take
Mon^y or Tuesday to heart. I want to read Byron’s Letters 1
but I must go on with La Princessede Clives. This masterpiece
has long been on my conscience. Me to talk of fiction andi
not to have read this classic! But reading classics is gener-
ally hard going. Especially classics like this one, which arcl
classics because of their perfect taste, shapeliness, comw
posurc, artistry. Not a hair of its head is dishevelled. £
think the beauty very great, but hard to appreciate. AIL
the characters arc noble. The movement is stately. The
machinery a little cumbrous. Stories have to be toldj
Lettcre dropped. It is the action of the human heart anci
not of niuscle or fate that wc watch. But stories of nobl 3
human hearts have their movements unapproachable in'
other circuimtanccs. There is a queer understated pro-
lundity m the relations between Madame de Cloves and
her mother, for example. If I were reviewing it, I think I
should take for my text beauty in character. Thank God
though lam not reviewing it. Within the last few minutes
X hzve skimmed the reviews in the J^ew Statesman: between
coffee and cigarette I read the J^ation; now the best
brains m England (metaphorically speaking) sweated

^6 A WRITER’S DIARY

themselves for I don’t know how many hou^ to give me
this brief condescending sort of amusement. When 1 read
reviews I crush the column together to get at one or two
sentences; is it a good book or a bad? And then ^ ^count
those two sentences according to what I know of the book
and of the reviewer. But when I write a review I v^ite
every sentence as if it were going to be tried before three
Chief Justices. I can’t believe that I am crushed together
and discounted. Reviews seem to me more and more
frivolous. Criticism on the other hand absorbs me more
and more. But after 6 weeks inftuenza my mind throws
UP no matutinal fountains. My note book lies by my bed
unopened. At ftrst I could hardly read for the swarm of
ideas that rose involuntarily. I had to write them out at
once. And this is great fun. A little air, sewng the buses
go by, lounging by the river, will, please God, send the
sparks flying again. I am suspended between life and death
in an unfamiliar way. Where is my paper knife? I must cut
Lord Byron.

Friday^ June 23rd

Jacob, as I say, is being typed by Miss Green, and crosses
the Atlantic on July 14th. Then will begin my season of
doubts and ups and downs. I am guarding my^lf in this
way* I am going to be well on with a story for £liot> lives
for Squire, and Reading; so that I can vaiy the side of the \
pillow as fortune inclines* If they say this is all a clever
experiment, I shall produce Mrs. Dalloway in Bond Street
as the finished product. If they say your fiction is impos-
sible, I shall say what about Miss Ormerod, a fantasy.

If they say “You can’t make us care a damn for any of
your figures”, I shall say read my criticism then. Now \
what will they say about Jacobi Mad, I suppose: a ^s-
connected rhapsody; I don’t know. I will confide my view
to this book on re-reading. On re-reading novels is the
title of a very laborious, yet rather gifted article, for the

Supt.

47

NINETEEN TWENTY-TWO

Wednesday^ July 26th

On Sunday L. read through Jacob's Room. He thinks it
my best work. But his first remark was that it was amaz-
ingly well \vrittcn. We ar^cd about it. He calls it a work
of genius; he thinks it unlike any other novel; he says that
the people are ghosts; he says it is very strange: I have no
philosophy of life he says; my people are puppets, moved
liithcr and thither by fate. He doesn’t agree that fate
works in this way. Thinks I should use my “method” on
one or two characters next time; and he found it veiy’
interesting and beautiful, and without lapse (save per-
haps the party) and quite intelligible. Pocky has so dis-
turbed my mind that I cannot write this as formally as it
deserves, for I was anxious and excited. But I am on the
whole pleased. Neither of us knows what the public will
think. Tliere’s no doubt in my mind that I have found
out how to begin (at 40) to say something in my own voice;
and that interests me so that I feel I can go ahead without
praise.

Wednesday^ August i6th

I should be reading Ulysses, and fabricating my case
for and against. I have read 200 pages so far — not a third;
and have been amused, stimulated, charmed, interested,
by the first 2 or 3 chapters — to the end of the cemetery
scene; and then puzzled, bored, irritated and disillusioned
by a queasy undergraduate scratching his pimples. And
Tom, great Tom, thinks this on a par with IVar and
Peace] An illiterate, underbred book it seems to me; the
book of a self taught working man, and we all know how
distressing they are, how egotistic, insistent, raw, striking,
and ultimately nauseating. When one can have the cooked
flesh, why have the raw? But I tliink if you arc anaemic,
as Tom is, there is a glory in blood. Being fairly normal
myself I am soon ready for the classics again. I may
revise this later. I do not compromise my critical sagacity.
I plant a stick in the ground to mark page 200.

For my own part I am laboriously dredging my mind

48 A WRITER'S DIARY

for Mrs. Dalloway and bringing up light buckets. I don’t
like the feeling. I’m ^v^iting too quickly. 1 must press it
together. I wrote 4 thousand words of Reading in record
time, 10 days; but then it was merely a quick sketch of
Pastons, supplied by books. Now I break off, according to
my quick change tlieory, to write Mrs. D. (who ushers
in a host of others, I begin to perceive). Then I do
Chaucer; and finish the first chapter early in September.
By iliat time, I have my Greek beginning perliaps, in
my head; and so the future is all pegged out; and when
Jacob is rejected in America and ignored in England, 1
shall be philosopliically driving my plough fields away.
They are cutting the corn all over the country, wliich
supplies that metaphor, and perhaps excuses it. But 1
need no excuses, since I am not \vriting for the Lit. Sup.
Shall I ever write for them again?

Tuesday^ August 22nd

The way to rock oneself back into writing is this. First
gentle exercise in the air. Second the reading of good
literature. It is a mistake to think that literature can be
produced from the raw. One must get out of life — yes,
that’s why I disliked so much the irruption of Sydney —
one must become externalised; very, very concentrated,
all at one point, not having to draw upon the scattered
parts of one’s character, living in the brain. Sydney comes
and I’m Virginia; when I ^vritc I’m merely a sensibility.
Sometimes I like being Virginia, but only when I’m
scattered and various and gregarious. Now, so long as wc
arc here. I’d like to be only a sensibility. By the way,
Thackeray is good reading, very vivacious, with “touches”
as they call them over the way at the Shanks’, of astonish-
ing insight.

Monday^ August 28th

1 am beginning Greek again, and must really make out
some plan: today 28th: Mrs. Dalloway finished on Saturday
2nd Sept: Sunday 3rd to Friday 8th; start Chaucer.

NINETEEN TWENTY-TWO 49

Chaucer — that chapter, I mean, should be finished by
Sept. 22nd. And then? Shall I \vTitc the next chapter of
Mrs. D . — if she is to have a next chapter; and shall it be
The Prime Minister? which will last till the week after we
get back — say October 12th. Then I must be ready to
start my Greek chapter. So I have from today, 28th, till
1 2th — which is just over 6 weeks — but I must allow for
some interruptions. Now what have I to read? Some
Homer: one Greek play: some Plato: Zimmern: Shep-
pard, as textbook; Bentley’s Life: if done thoroughly, this
will be enough. But which Greek play? and how much
Homer, and what Plato? Then there’s the anthology. All
to end upon the Odyssey because of the Elizabethans.
And I must read a little Ibsen to compare with Euripides
— Racine with Sophocles — perhaps Marlowe with Aeschy-
lus. Sounds very learned; but really might amuse me; and
if it doesn’t, no need to go on.

iV ednesdaj>^ September 6th

My proofs* come every other day and I could depress
myself adequately if I went into that. The thing now reads
thin and pointless; the words scarcely dint the paper; and
I expect to be told I’ve written a graceful fantasy, without
much bearing upon real life. Can one tell? Anyhow, nature
obligingly supplies me with the illusion that I am about
to VkTite something good; something rich and deep and
fluent, and hard as nails, while bright as diamonds.

I finished Ulysses and think it a mis-firc. Genius it has,

I think; but of the inferior water. The book is diffuse. It
is brackish. It is pretentious. It is underbred, not only in
the obvious sense, but in the literary sense. A first rate
writer, I mean, respects writing too much to be tricky;
startling; doing stunts. I’m reminded all the time of some
callow board school boy, full of wits and powers, but so
self-conscious and egotistical that he loses his head, be-
comes extravagant, mannered, uproarious, ill at case,
makes kindly people feel sorry for him and stem ones
merely annoyed; and one hopes he’ll grow out of it; but
I * or JacoVs Room.

50 A WRITER’S DIARY

as Joyce is 40 tliis scarcely seems likely. I have not read
it carefully; and only once; and it is very obscure; so no
doubt I have scamped the virtue of it more than is fair.
I feel that myriads of tiny bullets pepper one and spatter
one; but one docs not get one deadly wound straight in
the face— as from Tolstoy, for instance; but it is entirely
absurd to compare him with Tolstoy.

Thursday^ September yth

Having written this, L. put into my hands a very intclli-
ijent review of Ulyssts^ in the Anncrican which, for

the first time, analyses the meaning; and certainly makes
it very much more impressive than I judged. Still I think
there is virtue and some lasting truth in first impressions,
so I don’t cancel mine. I must read some of the chapters
again. Probably the final beauty of writing is never felt
by contemporaries; but they ought, I think, to be bowled
over; and this I was not. Then again, I had my back up
on purpose; then again I was over stimulated by Tom’s
praises.

Thursday^ September 26th

Wittering. Morgan came on Friday; Tom on Saturday.
My talk with Tom deserves writing down, but won’t get
it for the light is fading; and we cannot write talk down
cither, as was agreed at Charleston the other day. There
was a good deal of talk about Ulysses, Tom said, “He is a
purely literary writer. He is founded upon Walter Pater
with a dash of Newman.” I said he was virile— a he-goat;
but didn’t expect Tom to agree. Tom did though; and
said he left out many things that were important. The
book would be a landmark, because it destroyed the whole
of the 19th Century. It left Joyce himself with nothing
to write another book on. It showed up the futility of all
the English styles. He thought some of the writing beauti-
ful. But there was no “great conception”; that was not
Joyce’s intention. He thought that Joyce did completely
what he meant to do. But he did not think that he gave

NINETEEN TWENTY-TWO 51

a new insight into human nature — said nothing new like
Tolstoy. Bloom told one nothing. Indeed, he said, this
new method of giving the psychology proves to my mind
that it doesn’t work. It doesn’t tell as much as some
casual glance from outside often tells. I said I had found
Pendennis more illuminating in this way. (The horses are
now cropping near my window; the little owl calling, and
so I \vrite nonsense.) So we got on to S. Sitwell, who
merely explores his sensibility — one of the deadly crimes as
Tom thinks: to Dostoievsky — the ruin of English litera-
ture, we agreed; Singe a fake; present state disastrous,
because the form don’t fit; to his mind not even promising
well; he said that one must now be a very first rate poet
to be a poet at all: When there were great poets, the little
ones caught some of the glow, and were not worthless.
Now there’s no great poet. When was the last? I asked,
and he said none that interested him since the time of
Johnson. Browning he said was lazy: they are all lazy he
said. And Macaulay spoilt English prose. We agreed that
people arc now afraid of the English language. He said
it came of being bookish, but not reading books enough.
One should read all styles thoroughly. He thought D. H.
Lawrence came off occasionally, especially in Aaron's
Rod, the last book; had great moments; but was a most
incompetent writer. He could cling tight to his conviction
though. (Light now fails — 7.10 after a bad rainy day.)

Wednesday, October 4th

I am a little uppish, though, and self assertive, because
Brace wrote to me yesterday, “We think Jacob's Room an
extraordinarily distinguished and beautiful work. You
have, of course, your own method, and it is not easy to
foretell how many readers it will have; surely it will have
enthusiastic ones, and we delight in publishing it”, or
words to that effect. As this is my first testimony from an
impartial person I am pleased. For one thing it must
make some impression, as a whole; and cannot be wholly
frigid fireworl^. We think of publishing on October 27th.
I daresay Duckworth is a little cross with me. I snuff my

52 A WRITER’S DIARY

freedom. It is I think true, soberly and not artificially for
the public, that I shall go on unconcernedly whatever
people say. At last, I like reading my own writing. It
seems to me to fit me closer than it did before. I have
done my task here better than I expected. Mrs. Dallowqy
and the Cliaucer chapter are finished: I have read 5 books
of tlic Odyssey; Ulysses^ and now begin Proust. I also read
Chaucer and the Pastons. So evidently my plan of the two
books running side by side is practicable and certainly I
enjoy my reading with a purpose. I am committed to
only one Supt. article — on essays — and that at my own
time; so I am free. I shall read Greek now steadily and
begin The Prime Minister on Friday morning. I shall read
the Trilogy and some Sophocles and Euripides and a
Plato dialogue: also the lives of Bentley and jebb. At
forty I am beginning to learn the mechanism of my own
brain — how to get the greatest amount of pleasure and
work out of it. The secret is I think always so to contrive
that work is pleasant.

Saturday^ October 14th

I have had two letters, from Lytton and Carrington,
about Jacob's Roomy and written I don’t know how many
envelopes; and here we arc on the verge of publication.
I must sit for my portrait to John o' London's on Monday.
Richmond writes to ask that date of publication may be
put ahead, so that they may notice it on Thursday. My
sensations? they remain calm. Yet how could Lytton have
praised me more highly? prophesies immortality for it as
poetry; is afraid of my romance; but the beauty of the
writing etc. Lytton praises me too highly for it to give me
exquisite pleasure; or perhaps that nerve grows dulled.
I want to be through the splash and swimming in calm
water again. I want to be writing unobserved. Mrs, Dallo-
way has branched into a book; and I adumbrate here a
study of insanity and suicide; the world seen by the sane
and the insane side by side — something like that. Septi-
mus Smith? is that a good name? and to be more close to
the fact than Jacob: but I think Jacob was a necessary

NINETEEN TWENTY. TWO 53

step, foi me, in working free. And now I must use this
benignant page for making out a scheme of work.

. reading for the Greek chapter. I

mall finish The Prime Minister in another week — say 2rst
Then I must be ready to start my Essay article for The
fimes: say on the 23rd. That will take say till 2nd Novcm-
ber. Therefore I must now concentrate on Essays* with
some Aeschylus, and I think begin Zimmern, making
rather a hasty end of Bentley, who is not really much to
my purpose. I think that clears the matter up — though
how to read Aeschylus I don’t quite know: quickly, is my

desire, but that, I see, is an illusion.

As for my views about the success of Jacob, what arc
they? I think we shall sell 500; it will then go slowly and
reach 800 by June. It will be highly praised in some places
for beauty ; will be crabbed by people who want human
charac^r. The only review I am anxious about is the one
m the Supt.: not that it ^vi!l be the most intelligent, but it
will be the most read and I can’t bear people to sec me
c owned m public. The W.G.' will be hostile; so, very
Imcly, the J^ation. But I am perfectly serious in saying
that nothing budges me from my determination to go
on, or alters my pleasure; so whatever happens, though
the surface may be agitated, the centre is secure.

Tuesday, October lyth

As this is to be a chart of my progress I enter hastily
here: one, a letter from Desmond who is halfway through,
says “You have never written so well ... I marvel and
am puzzled” — or words to that effect: two, Bunny * rings
up enthusiastic; says it is superb, far my best, has great
vitality and importance: also he takes 36 copies, and says
people already “clamour”. This is not confirmed by the
bookshops, visited by Ralph. I have sold under 50 today;
but the hbranes remain and Simpkin Marshall.

* WestmimUT GavtU. « David Gameu.

54 A WRITER’S DIARY

Sunday^ October 2gth

Miss Mary Butts being gone, and my head too stupid
for reading, I may as well write here, for my amusement
later perhaps. I mean I’m too riddled with talk and
harassed with the usual worry of people who like and
people who don’t like J.R. to concentrate. There was
The Times review on Thursday — long, a little tepid, I
think — saying that one can’t make characters in this way;
flattering enough. Of course, I had a letter from Morgan
in the opposite sense — the letter IVc liked best of all. Wc
have sold 650, 1 think; and liave ordered a second edition.
My sensations? as usual — mixed. I shall never write a
book that is an entire success. This time the reviews arc
against me and the private people enthusiastic. Either 1
am a great writer or a nincompoop. “An elderly sen-
sualist,” the Daily News calls me. Pall Mall passes me over
as negligible. I expect to be neglected and sneered at.
And what will be the fate of our second thousand then?
So far of course the success is much more than wc expected.
I think I am better pleased so far than I have ever been.
Morgan, Lytton, Bunny, Violet, Logan,* Philip,® have
all written enthusiastically. But I want to be quit of all
this. It hangs about me like Mary Butts* scent. I don’t
want to be totting up compliments, and comparing re-
views. I want to think out Mrs, Dalloway. I want to fore-
see this book better than the others and get the utmost
out of it. I expect I could have screwed Jacob up tighter,
if I had foreseen; but I had to make my patlt as I went.

* Logan Pearsall Smith. * Pliilip Morrell.

1923

Monday, June 4th

rm over peevish in private, partly in order to assert
m>sclf. I am a great deal interested suddenly in my book.
I want to bring m the despicablcncss of people like Ott '
I want to ^ve the slipperiness of the soul. I have been too
tolerant often The truth is people scarcely care for each
otner. 1 hey have this insane instinct for life. But they

to anything outside tltcmselvcs.
1 uff said he loved his family and had nothing whatever
to knock oyer. He disliked cold indecency. So did Lord
Uayid. This must be a phrase in their set. Puff said— I
don t quite know what. I walked round the vegetable

flirting on a green seat;
and round the field with Sackvillc West, who said he
was better, and was writing a better novel, and round
the ake with Mcnasseh (?) an Egyptian Jew, who said
nc liked his family and they were mad and talked like
books; and he said that they quoted my writings (the
Oxford youth) and wanted me to go and speak; and
then there was Mrs. AsquitJi. I was impressed. She is
stone white; with the brown veiled eyes of an aged
lalcon; and in them more depth and scrutiny than I ex-
pected; a character, with her friendliness and ease and
decision Oh if we could have had ShcUcy’s poems; and
not Shelley the man! she said. Shelley was quite intoler-
able, she pronounced; she is a rigid frigid puritan; and in
spite ol spending thousands on dress. She rides life, if you
ike; and has picked up a thing or two, which I should
like to plunder and never shall. She led Lytton off and
plucked his arm, and hurried— and thought “people”
pu^ued her; yet was very affable with “people” when she
had to be, and sat on the window sill talking to a black

* Udy Ouolinc Morrell. What follow-s describes a week-end at
Garsington where she and PhiUp Morrell lived.

* Anthony Asquith.

55 c

36 A WRITER’S DIARY

shabby cmbroidcress, to whom Ott. is being kind. That s
one of her horrors— she’s always being kind in order to
say to herself at night, then Ottolinc invites tlie poor little
cmbroidcress to her parly and so to round off her ojyn
picture of herself. To sneer like this has a physical dis-
comfort in it. She told me I looked wonderfully well,
which I disliked. Why? I wonder. Because I had had a
headache perhaps, partly. But to be well and use strength
to get more out of life is, surely, the greatest fun in the
world. What I dislike is feeling that I’m always Uking
care, or being taken care of. Never mind — work, work.
Lytton says we have still 20 years before us. Mrs. Asquith
said she loved Scott.

Wednesdayy June i^lh

There was Lady Colcfax in her hat with the green
ribbons. Did I say that I lunched with her last week?
That was Derby Day and it rained, and all the light w^
brown and cold and she went on talking, talking, in
consecutive sentences like the shavings that come from
planes, artificial, but unbroken. It was not a successful
party, Clive and Lytton and me. For Clive’s back; and
he dined here with Leo Myers the other night; and then
I went to Goldcrs Green and sat with Mary Sheepshanks
in her garden and beat up the waters of talk, as I do so
courageously, so tliat life mayn’t be wasted. The fr«h
breeze went brushing all the thick hedges which divide
the gardens. Somehow, extraordinary emotions possessed
me. I forget now what. Often now I have to control my
excitement — as if I were pushing through a screen; or as
if something beat fiercely close to me. What this portends
I don’t know. It is a general sense of the poetry of exist-
ence that overcomes me. Often it is connected with the
sea and St. Ives. Going to 46 continues to excite. The
sight of two coffins in the Underground luggage office I
daresay constricts all my feelings. I have the sense of the
flight of time; and this shores up my emotions.

NINETEEN TWENTY-THREE

57

Tuesday ^ June igth

I took up this book with a kind of idea that I might say
something about my \vriting — which was prompted by
glancing at what K. M. said about her wTiting in The
Dove's Nest. But I only glanced. She said a good deal
about feeling things deeply; also about being pure, which
1 won’t criticise, though of course I very well could. But
now what do I feci about my Nvriting? — this book, that is.
The Hours, ^ if that’s its name? One must write from deep
feeling, said Dostoievsky. And do 1? Or do I fabricate
with words, loving them as I do? No, I think not. In this
book 1 have almost too many ideas. I want to give life
and death, sanity and insanity; I want to criticise the
social system, and to show it at work, at its most intense.
But here I may be posing. I heard from Ka * this morning
tliat she doesn’t like In the Orchard. At once I feel refreshed.
I become anonymous, a person who writes for the love of
it. She takes away the motive of praise, and lets me feel
that without any praise I should be content to go on.
This is what Duncan said of liis painting the other night.
I feel as if I slipped off all my ball dresses and stood
naked — which as I remember was a very pleasant thing
to do. But to go on. Am I writing The Hours from deep
emotion? Of course the mad part tries me so much, makes
my mind squirt so badly that I can hardly face spending
the next weeks at it. It’s a question tliough of these char-
acters. People, like Arnold Bennett, say I can’t create,
or didn’t in Jacob's Room, characters that survive. My
answer is — but I leave that to the Nation: it’s only the old
argument that character is dissipated into shreds now;
the old post-Dostoievsky argument. I daresay it’s true,
however, that I haven’t that “reality” gift. I insubstantise,
wilfully to some extent, distrusting reality — its cheapness.
But to get further. Have I the power of conveying the
true reality? Or do I write essays about myself? Answer
these questions as I may, in the uncomplimentary sense,
and still there remains this excitement. To get to the

* Subsequently this title was altered to Mrs. Dattoway.

■ Mrs. Arnold-Forstcr.

58 A WRITER’S DIARY

bones, now I’m writing fiction again I feel my force glow
Straight from me at its fullest. After a dose of criticism I
feel That I’m writing sideways, using only an angle of my
mind. This is justification; for free use of the faculties
means happiness. Tm better company, more of a human
being. Nevertheless, I think it most important in this
book to go for the central things. Even though they dori’t
submit, "as they should, however, to beautification m
language. No. I don’t nail my crest to the Murrys, who
work in my flesh after the manner of the jigger insect. It’s
annoying, indeed degrading, to have these bitternesses.
Still, think of the i8th Century. But then they were overt,
not covert, as now.

I foresee, to return to The HourSy that this is going to
be the devil of a struggle. The design is so queer and so
masterful. I’m always having to wrench my substance
to fit it. The design is certainly original and interests me
hugely. I should like to write away and away at it, very
quick and fierce. Needless to say, I can’t. In three weeks
from today, I shall be dried up.

Friday^ August lyth

The question I want to debate here is the question of
my essays: and how to make them into a book. The
brilliant idea has just come to me of embedding them in
Otway conversation. The main advantage would be that
I could then comment and add what I had had to leave
out, or failed to get in, c.g. the one on George Eliot cer-
tainly needs an epilogue. Also to have a setting for each
would “make a book”; and the collection of articles is in
my view an inartistic method. But then this might be too
artistic; it might run away with me; it will take time.
Nevertheless I should very much enjoy it. I should graze
nearer my own individuality. I should mitigate the pom-
posity and sweep in all sorts of trifles. I think I should feel
more at my case. So I think a trial should be made. The
first thing to do is to get ready a certain number of
essays. There could be an introductory chapter. A family
which reads the papers. The thing to do would be to

NINETEEN TWENTY-THREE 59

envelope each essay in its own atmosphere. To get them
into a current of life, and so to shape the book; to get a
stress upon some main line — but what the line is to be,
I can only see by reading them through. No doubt fiction
is the prevailing theme. Anyhow the book should end
with modem literature.

6

Jane Austen

!n order of time

5

Addison

'4

Conrad

Montaigne

‘5

How it strikes a

Evelyn

Contemporar)'

Defoe

1 1

The Russians

Sheridan

4

Evelyn

Sterne

7

George Eliot

Addison

13

Modern Essays

Jane Austen

to

Henry James

Charlotte Bronte

Re-reading novels

George Eliot

8

Charlotte Bronte

The Russians

2

Defoe

The Americans

12

Modern Novels

Thoreau

Greeks

Emerson

9

Thoreau

Henry James

Emerson

Modern Fiction

3

Sheridan?

On re-reading novels

2

Sterne?

Essays

la

Old Memoirs

How it strikes a

contemporary

These arc, roughly, the headings.

Saturdayy August zgth

I’ve been battling for ever so long with The Hours,
which is proving one of my most tantalising and refractory
of books. Parts arc so bad, parts so good; Tm much in-
terested; can’t stop making it up yet — yet. What is the
matter with it? But I want to freshen myself, not deaden
myself, so will say no more. Only I must note this odd
symptom; a conviction that I shall go on, sec it through,
because it interests me to write it.

fio A WRITER’S DIARY

Thursday, August 30th

1 was called, 1 tJiink, to cut wood; we have to shape
logs for the stove, for we sit in the lodge every night and
my goodness, the wind! Last night we looked at the
meadow trees, flinging about, and such a weight of leaves
that every brandish seems the end. Only a strewing of
leaves from the lime tree, though, this morning. 1 read
such a white dimity rice pudding chapter of Mrs. Gaskcll
at midnight in the gale Wives and Daughters — I think
it must be better than old \vives’ talc all the same. You
see. I’m thinking furiously about Reading and Writing.

I have no time to describe my plans. I should say a good
deal about The Hours and my discovery: how I dig out
beautiful eaves behind my characters: I think that gives
exactly what I w'ant; humanity, humour, depth. The idea
is that the eaves shall connect and each comes to daylight
at the present moment. Dinner!

Wednesday, September 5th

And I’m slightly dashed by the reception of my Conrad
conversation, which has been purely negative. No one has
mentioned it. I don’t think M. or B. quite approved.
Never mind; to be dashed is aUvays the most bracing
treatment for me. A cold douche should be taken (and
generally is) before beginning a book. It invigorates;
makes one say “Oh all right. I write to please myself”
and so go ahead. It also has the effect of making me more
definite and outspoken in my style, which I imagine all
to the good. At any rate, I began for the fifth but last time,
I swear, what is now to be called The Common Reader;
and did the first page quite moderately well tliis morning.
After all this stew, it’s odd how, as soon as 1 begin, a new
aspect, never all this two or three years thought of, at once
becomes clear; and gives the whole bundle a new pro-
portion. To curtail, I shall really investigate literature
with a view to answering certain questions about our-
selves. Characters are to be merely views: personality
must be avoided at all costs. I*m sure my Conrad adven-

NINETEEN TWENTY-THREE 6i

lure taught me this. Directly you specify hair, age etc.
something frivolous, or irrelevant gets into the book.
Dinner!

Monday, October lyth

I am now in the thick of the mad scene in Regent’s
Park. I find I write it by clinging as tight to fact as I can,
and write perhaps 50 words a morning. This I must re-
write some day. I think the design is more remarkable
than in any of my books. I daresay I shan’t be able to
carry it out. I am stuffed with ideas for it. I feel I can use
up everything I’ve ever thought. Certainly, I’m less
coerced than I’ve yet been. The doubtful point is, I think,
the character of Mrs. Dalloway. It may be too stiff, too
glittering and tinscly. But then I can bring innumerable
otlier characters to her support. I wrote the tooth page
today. Of course, I’ve only been feeling my way into it —
up till last August anyhow. It took me a year’s groping
to discover what I call my tunnelling process, by which
I tell the past by instalments, as I have need of it. This
is my prime discovery so far; and the fact that I’ve been
so long finding it proves, I think, how false Percy Lub-
bock’s doctrine is — that you can do this sort of thing
consciously. One feels about in a state of misery — indeed
I made up my mind one night to abandon the book —
and then one touches the hidden spring. But lor’ love me!
I’ve not re-read my great discovery, and it may be
nothing important whatsoever. Never mind. I own I have
my hopes for this book. I am going on writing it now till,
honestly, I can’t write another line. Journalism, every-
thing, is to give way to it.

1924

Monday, May 26th

London is enchanting. I step out upon a tawny coloured
magic carpet, it seems, and get carried into beauty with-
out raising a finger. The nights arc amazing, with all the
white porticos and broad silent avenues. And people pop
in and out, lightly, divertingly like rabbits; and I look
down Southampton Row, wet as a seal’s back or red and
yellow with sunshine, and watch the omnibuses going and
coming and hear the old crazy organs. One of these days
I will write about London, and how it takes up the private
life and carries it on, without any effort. Faces passing lift
up my mind; prevent it from settling, as it docs in the
stillness at Rodmcll.

But my mind is full of The Hours. I am now saying
that I will write at it for 4 months, June, July, August
and September, and then it will be done, and I shall put
it away for three months, during wliich I shall finish my
essays; and then that will be — October, November,
December — January; and 1 shall revise it January
February March April; and in April my essays will come
out, and in May my novel. Such is my programme. It is
reeling off my mind fast, and free now; as ever since the
crisis of August last, which I count the beginning of it, it
has gone quick, being much interrupted though. It is
becoming more analytical and human I think; less lyrical;
but I feel as if I had loosed the bonds pretty completely
and could pour everything in. If so — good. Reading it
remains. I aim at 80,000 words this time. And I like
London for writing it, partly because, as I say, life up-
liolds one; and with my squirrel cage mind it’s a great
thing to be stopped circling. Then to see human beings
freely and quickly is an infinite gain to me. And I can
dart in and out and refresh my stagnancy.

63

^3

NINETEEN TWENTY-FOUR
Saturday^ August 2nd

Here we are at Rodmcll, and I witli 20 minutes to fill
in before dinner. A feeling of depression is on me, as
if we were old and near the end of all things. It must
be the change from London and incessant occupation.
Then, being at a low ebb with my book — the death of
Septimus — and I begin to count myself a failure. Now
the point of the Press is that it entirely prevents brooding;
and gives me something solid to fall back on. Anyhow, if I
can’t write, I can make other people write; I can build
up a business. The country is like a convent. The soul
swims to the top. Julian ^ has just been and gone, a tall
young man who, inveterately believing myself to be
young as I do, seems to me like a younger brother; any-
how we sit and chatter, as easily as can be. It’s all so
much the same — his school continues Thoby’s school. He
tells me about boys and masters as Thoby used to. It
interests me just in the same way. He’s a sensitive, very
quick w’itted, rather combative boy; full of Wells, and
discoveries and the future of the world. And, being of my
own blood, easily understood. Going to be very tall, and
go to the Bar, I daresay. Nevertheless, in spite of the
grumbling with wliich this began, honestly I don’t feel
old; and it’s a question of getting up my steam again in
writing. If only I could get into my vein and work it
thoroughly, deeply, easily, instead of hacking at this
miserable 200 words a day. And then, as the manuscript
grows I have the old fear of it. I shall read it and find it
pale. I shall prove the truth of Murry’s saying, that there’s
no way of going on after Jacob's Room. Yet if this book
proves anything, it proves that I can only write along those
lines, and shall never desert them, but explore further
and further and shall, heaven be praised, never bore my-
self an instant. But this slight depression — what is it? I
think I could cure it by crossing the channel and writing
nothing for a week. I want to sec something going on
busily without help from me: a French market town for
example. Indeed, have I the energy, I’ll cross to Dieppe;

* Julian Bell, son of Vanessa.

64

A WRITER’S DIARY

or compromise by exploring Sussex on a motor bus.
August ought to be hot. Deluges descend. ^Vc sheltered
under a haystack today. But oh the delicacy and com-
plexity of the .soul— for haven’t I begun to tap her and
listen to her breathing after all? A change of house makes
me oscillate for days. And that’s life; that’s ^vholesomc.
Never to quiver is the lot of Mr. Allinson, Mrs. Hawkes-
ford and Jack Squire. In two or three days, acclimatised,
started, reading and writing, no more of this will exist.
And if we didn’t live venturously, plucking the wild goat
by the beard, and trembling over precipices, wc should
never be depressed, I’ve no doubt; but already should
be faded, fatalistic and aged.

Sundayy August 3rd

But it’s a question of work. I am already a good deal
pulled together by sticking at my books: my 250 words
at fiction first, and then a systematic beginning, I daresay
the 80th, upon The Common Reader^ who might be finished
in a flash I think, did I see the chance to flash and have
done with it. But there’s a lot of work in these things.
It strikes me, I must now read Pilgrim's Progress: Mrs.
Hutchinson. And should I demolish Richardson? whom
I’ve never read. Yes, I’ll run through the rain into the
house and see if Clarissa is there. But that’s a block out
of my day and a long long novel. Then I must read the
Medea. I must read a little translated Plato.

Friday, August 15th

Into all these calculations, broke the death of Conrad,
followed by a wire from the Lit. Sup. earnestly asking me
kindly to do a leader on him, which flattered and loyal,
but grudgingly, I did; and it’s out; and that number of
the Lit. Sup. corrupted for me (for I can’t, and never
shall be able to, read my own writings. Moreover, now
little Walkley’s on the war path again 1 expect a bite
next Wednesday.) Yet I have never never worked so
hard, For, having to do a leader in five days, I made hay

NINETEEN TWENTY-FOUR 65

after tea — and couldn’t distinguish tea hay from morning
hay cither. So doesn’t this give me two extra hours for
critical works anyhow (as Logan calls them)? So I’m
trying it — my fiction before lunch and then essays after
tea. For I sec that Afrs. Dalloivay is going to stretch beyond
October. In my forecasts I always forget some most
important intervening scenes: I think I can go straight
at the grand party and so end; forgetting Septimus, which
is a very intense and ticklish business, and jumping Peter
\Valsh eating his dinner, which may be some obstacle loo.
But I like going from one lighted room to another, such
is my brain to me; lighted rooms; and the walks in the
fields arc corridors; and now today I’m lying thinking.
By the way, why is poetry wholly an elderly taste? When
I was 20, in spite of Thoby who used to be so pressing
and exacting, I could not for the life of me read Shake-
speare for pleasure; now it lights me as I walk to think I
have nvo acts of King John tonight, and shall next read
Richard II. It is poetry that I w'ant now — long poems.
Indeed I’m thinking of reading the Seasons. I want the
concentration and the romance, and the words all glued
together, fused, glowing; have no time to waste any more
on prose. Yet this must be the very opposite to what
people say. When I was 20 I liked i 8 th Century prose;
I liked Hakluyt, Mcrimcc. I read masses of Carlyle,
Scott’s life and letters, Gibbon, all sorts of two volume
biographies, and Shelley. Now it’s poetry I want, so 1
repent like a tipsy sailor in front of a public house. . . .
I don’t often trouble now to describe cornfields and
groups of harvesting women in loose blues and reds, and
little staring yellow frocked girls. But that’s not my eyes’
fault: coming back the other evening from Charleston,
again all my nerves stood upright, flushed, electrified
(what’s the word?) with the sheer beauty — beauty
astounding and superabounding. So that one almost
resents it, not being capable of catching it all and holding
it all at the moment. One’s progress through life is made
immensely interesting by trying to grasp all these develop-
ments as one passes. I feel as if I were putting out my
fingers tentatively on (here is Leonard, who has ordered

66

A WRITER’S DIARY

me a trap in which to drive Dadie * to Tilton * tomorrow)
cither side as I grope down a tunnel, rough with odds
and ends. And I don’t describe encounters with herds of
Aldcrncys any more — though this would have been ncces*
sary some years ago — how tliey barked and belled like
stags round Grizzle; and how I waved my stick and stood
at bay; and thought of Homer as they came flourishing
and trampling towards me; some mimic battle. Grizzle
grew more and more insolent and excited and skirmished
about yapping. Ajax? That Greek, for all my ignorance,
has worked its way into me.

Sunday^ September yth

It is a disgrace that I write nothing, or if I write, write
sloppily, using nothing but present participles. I find
them very useful in my last lap of Mrs. D. There 1 am now
— at last at the party, which is to begin in the kitchen, and
climb slowly upstairs. It is to be a most complicated,
spirited, solid piece, knitting together everything and end-
ing on three notes, at dififerent stages of the staircase, each
saying something to sum up Clarissa. Who shall say these
things? Peter, Richard, and Sally Scion perhaps: but I
don’t want to tic myself down to that yet. Now I do think
this might be the best of my endings and come off, perhaps.
But I have still to read the first chapters, and confess to
dreading the madness rather; and being clever. However,
I’m sure I’ve now got to work with my pick at my seam,
if only because my metaphors come free, as they do here.
Suppose one can keep the quality of a sketch in a finished
and composed work? That is my endeavour. Anyhow,
none can help and none can hinder me any more. I’ve
been in for a shower of compliments too from The Timw,
Richmond rather touching me by saying that he gives
way to my novel with all the will in the world. I should
like him to read my fiction, and alwa^ suppose he
doesn’t.

There I was swimming in the highest ether known to

> G. W. Rylands.

• A house near Firlc rented by J. M. Keynes.

NINETEEN TWENTY-FOUR 67

me and thinking I’d finish by Thursday; Lottie suggests
to Karin we’d like to have Ann; Karin interprets my
polite refusal to her own advantage and comes down
herself on Saturday, blowing everything to smithereens.
More and more am I solitary; the pain of these upheavals
is incalculable; and I can’t explain it either. . . . Here
I am with my wrecked week — for how serene and lovely
like a Lapland night was our last week together — feeling
that I ought to go in and be a good aunt — which I’m not
by nature; ought to ask Daisy what she wants; and by
rights I fill these moments full of Mrs. Dalloway’s party
for tomorrow’s writing. The only solution is to stay on
alone over Thursday and try my luck. A bad night
(K.’s doing again) may partly account. But how entirely
I live in my imagination; how completely depend upon
spurts of thought, coming as I walk, as I sit; things
churning up in my mind and so making a perpetual
pageant, which is to be my happiness. This brew can’t
sort with nondescript people. These wails must now have
ending, partly because 1 cannot sec, and my hand shakes,
having carried my bag from Lewes, where I sat on the
Castle top, where an old man was brushing leaves, and
told me how to cure lumbago; you tie a skein of silk
round you; the silk costs threepence. I saw British canoes,
and the oldest plough in Sussex 1750 found at Rodmell,
and a suit of armour said to have been worn at Scringapa-
tam. All this I should like to write about, I think. And
of course children are wonderful and charming creatures.
I’ve had Ann in talking about the white seal and want-
ing me to read to her. And how Karin manages to be so
aloof I can’t think. There’s a quality in their minds to me
very adorable; to be alone with them, and see them day
to day would be an extraordinary experience. They have
what no grown up has — that directness— chatter, chatter,
chatter, on Ann goes, in a kind of world of her own,
with its seals and dogs; happy because she’s going to
have cocoa tonight, and go blackberrying tomorrow.
The walb of her mind all hung round with such bright
vivid things, and she doesn’t see what we sec.

58 A WRITER’S DIARY

Friday, October lyth

It is disgraceful. I did run upstairs thinking I’d make
time to enter that astounding fact — the last words of the
last page of Mrs. Dalloway, but was interrupted. Anyhow,

I did them a week ago yesterday. “For there she was,
and I felt glad to be quit of it, for it has been a strain
tlie last weeks, yet fresher in the head 5 with less I mean
of the usual feeling that I’ve shaved through and just
kept my feet on the light rope. 1 feel indeed rather more
fully relieved of my meaning than usual— -whether this
will stand when I re-read is doubtful. But in some ways
this book is a feat; finished without break from illness,
which is an exception; and written really in one ^ar;
and finally, written from the end of March to the 8th Octo-
ber without more than a few days break for writing
journalism. So it may differ from the others. Anyhow, 1
feel that I have exorcised the spell which Murry and
others said I had laid myself under after Jacob's Room.
The only difficulty is to hold myself back from writing
others. My cul dc sac, as they called it, stretches so far
and shows such vistas. I sec already the Old Man.

It strikes me that in this book I practise writing; do my
scales; yes and work at certain effects. I daresay I practised
Jacob here; and Mrs. D. and shall invent my next book
here; for here I write merely in the spirit— great fun it is
too, and Old V. of 1940 will see something in it too. She
will be a woman who can see, old V., every tiling — more
than I can, 1 tliink. But I’m tired now.

Saturday, Jfovember ist

I must make some notes of work; for now I must buckle
to. The question is how to get the two books done. I am
going to skate rapidly over Mrs D., but it will take time.
No: I cannot say anything much to the point, for what I
must do is to experiment next week; how much revision
is needed, and how much time it takes. I am very set on
getting my essays out before my novel. Yesterday 1 had
tea in Mary’s room and saw the red lighted tugs go past

NINETEEN TWENTY-FOUR 69

and heard the swish of the river: Mary in black with
lotus leaves round her neck. If one could be friendly ^v•ith
women, what a pleasure — the relationship so secret and
private compared with relations with men. Why not write
about it? Truthfully? As I think, the diary writing has
greatly helped my style; loosened the ligatures.

Tuesday^ Xovember i8th

What I was going to say was that I think writing must
be formal. The an must be respected. This struck me
reading some of my notes here, for if one lets the mind
run loose it becomes egotistic; personal, which I detest.
At the same time the irregular fire must be there; and
perhaps to loose it one must begin by being chaotic, but
not appear in public like that. I am driving my way
through the mad chapters of Mrs. D. My wonder is
whether the book would have been better without them.
But this is an afterthought, consequent upon learning how
to deal with her. Always I think at the end, I see how the
whole ought to have been written.

Saturday^ December 13th

I am now galloping over Mrs. Dalloway, re-typing it
entirely from the start, which is more or less what I did
with the V.O.: a good method, I believe, as thus one
works with a wet brush over the whole, and joins parts
separately composed and gone dry. Really and honestly
I think it the most satisfactory of my novels (but have not
read it cold-bloodedly yet). The reviewers will say that
it is disjointed because of the mad scenes not connecting
with the Dalloway scenes. And I suppose there is some
superficial glittery writing. But is it “unreal”? Is it mere
accomplishment? I think not. And as I think I said before,
it seems to leave me plunged deep in the richest strata of
my mind. I can ^v^ite and write and write now: the
happiest feeling in the world.

70 A WRITER’S DIARY

Mondayy December 2ist

Really it is a disgrace— the number of blank pages in
this book. The effect of London on diaries is decidedly
bad. This is I fancy the leanest of them all, and I doubt
that I can take it to Rodmcll, or if I did, whether I could
add much. Indeed it has been an eventful year, as I
prophesied; and the dreamer of January 3rd h^ dreamt
much of her dream true; here we arc m London, with
Nelly alone, Dadic gone it is true, but Angus to replace
him. What emerges is that changing houses is not so
cataclysmic as I thought; after all, one doesn t change
body or brain. Still I am absorbed in “my writing ,
putting on a spurt to have \hs. D copied for L. to read at
Rodmell; and then in I dart to deliver the final blows to
The Common Reader, and then— and then I shall be free.
Free at least to write out one or two more stories which
have accumulated. I am less and less sure that they are
stories, or what they arc. Only I do feel fairly sure that I
am grazing as near as I can to my own ideas, and getting
a tolerable shape for them. I think there is less and less
wastage. But I have my ups and downs.

1925

Wednesday y January 6th

Rodmcll was all gale and flood; these words are exact.
The river overflowed. We had 7 days’ rain out of 10. Often
I could not face a walk. L. pruned, wliich needed heroic
courage. My heroism was purely literary. I revised Mrs.
D., the chillest part of the whole business of writing, the
most depressing — exacting. Tlie worst part is at the begin-
ning (as usual) where the aeroplane has it all to itself for
some pages and it wears thin. L. read it; thinks it my best
— but then has he not got to think so? Still I agree. He
thinks it has more continuity than J's /?., but is difficult
owing to the lack of connection, visible, between the two
themes. Anyhow it is sent off to Clark’s, and proofs will
come next week. Tliis is for Harcourt Brace, who has
accepted without seeing and raised me to 15 p.c.

Tuesday^ April 8th

I am under the impression of the moment, which is the
complex one of coming back home from the South of
France to this wide dim peaceful privacy — London (so it
seemed last night) which is shot with the accident I saw
this morning — a woman crying oh, oh, oh, faintly, pinned
against the railings with a motor car on top of her. All
day I have heard that voice. I did not go to her help;
but then every baker and flower seller did that. A great
sense of the brutality and wildness of the world remains
with me — there was this woman in brown walking along
the pavement — suddenly a red film car turns a somersault,
lands on top of her and one hears this oh, oh, oh. I was
on my way to sec Nessa’s new house and met Duncan in
the square, but as he had seen nothing he could not in
the least feel what I felt, or Ncssa cither, though she made
some effort to connect it with Angelica’s accident last
spring. But 1 assured her it was only a passing brown

7»

-2 A WRITER’S DIARY

woman; and so we went over the house composedly

enough.

Since I wrote, which is these last montlis, Jacques
Raverat has died; after longing to die; and he sent me a
letter about Mrs. Dalloway which gave me one of the
happiest days of my life. I svondcr if this lime I have
achieved something? Well, nothing anyhow compared
with Proust, in whom I am embedded now. The thing
about Proust is his combination of the utmost sensibility
with the utmost tenacity. He searches out these butterfly
shades to the last grain. He is as tough as catgut and as
evanescent as a butterfly’s bloom. And he will, I suppose,
both influence me and make me out of temper with every
sentence of my own. Jacques died, as I say; and at once
the siege of emotions began. I got the news with a party
— CHn’C, Bee How, Julia Strachey, Dadic. Neverthe-
less, I do not any longer feel inclined to doff the cap to
death. I like to go out of the room talking, with an un-
finished casual sentence on my lips. That is the effect it
h.ad on me— no Icavctakings, no submission, but someone
stepping out into the darkness. For her though the night-
mare w'a-s terrific. All I can do now is to keep natural with
her, which is 1 believe a matter of considerable import-
ance. More and more do I repeat my own version of Mon-
taigne — “It’s life that matters,”

I am wailing to sec what form of itself Cassis will finally
cast up in my mind. There arc the rocks. \Vc used to go
out after breakfast and sit on the rocks, with the sun on u.s.
L. used to sit without a hat, writing on his knee. One
morning he found a sea urchin — they are red with spikes
which quiver slightly. Then we would go and walk in the
afternoon, right up over the hill, into the woods, where
one day wc heard the motor cars and discovered the road
to La Giotat just beneath. It was stony, steep and very
hot. VVe heard a great chattering birdlike noise once and I
bethought me of the frogs. The ragged red tulips were
out in the fields; all the fields were little angulw shelves
cut out of the hill and ruled and ribbed with vines; and
all red, and rosy and purple here and there with the spray
of some fruit tree in bud. Here and there was an an^ar

NINETEEN TWENTY-FIVE

73

wliite or yellow or blue washed house, with all its shutters
tightly closed, and flat paths round it, and once rows of
stocks; an incomparable cleanness and definiteness every-
where. At La Ciotat great orange ships rose up out of the
blue water of the little bay. All these bays arc very' circular
and fringed with the pale coloured plaster houses, very
tall, shuttered, patched and peeled, now wiili a pot and
tufts of green on them, now with clothes, drying; now an
old old woman looking. On the hill, which is stony as a
desert, the nets were drying; and then in the streets
children and girls gossiped and meandered all in pale
bright shawls and cotton frocks, while the men picked up
the earth of the main square to make a paved court of it.
The Hotel Cendrillon is a white house with red tiled
floors, capable of housing perhaps 8 people. And then
the whole hotel atmosphere provided me with many
ideas: oh so cold, indifferent, superficially polite, and ex-
hibiting such odd relationships; as if human nature were
now reduced to a kind of code, which it has devised to
meet these emergencies, where people who do not know
each other meet and claim their rights as members of the
same tribe. As a matter of fact, we got into touch all
round; but our depths were not invaded. But L. and I
were too too happy, as they say; if it were now to die etc.
Nobody shall say of me that I have not known perfect
happiness, but few could put their finger on the moment,
or say what made it. Even I myself, stirring occasionally
in the pool of content, could only say But this is all I want;
could not think of anything better; and had only my half
superstitious feeling at the Gods who must when they
have created happiness, grudge it. Not if you get it in
unexpected ways, though.

Sunday^ April igth

It is now afier dinner, our first summertime night, and
the mood for writing has left me, only just brushed me
and left me. I have not achieved my sacred half hour yet.
But think — in time to come I would rather read something
here than reflect that I did polish off Mr. Ring Lardner

A WRITER’S DIARY

successfully. I’m out to make £300 this summer by writing
and build a bath and hot water range at Rodmell. But
hush, hush— my books tremble on the verge of coming out
and my future is uncertain. As for forecasts — it s just on
the cards Mrs. Dalloway is a success (Harcourt thinks it
“wonderful”) and sells 2,000 . 1 don’t expect it. I expect a
slow silent incrca.se of fame, such as has come about, rather
miraculously, since J.'s R. was published. My value
mounting steadily as a journalist, though scarcely a copy
sold. And I am not very nervous— rather; and I want as
usual to dig deep down into my new stories without
having a looking glass flashed in my eyes— Todd, to wit;
Colefax to wit ct cetera.

Mondayy April 20th

One thing, in considering my state of mind now, seems
to me beyond dispute; that I have, at last, bored down
into my oil well, and can’t scribble fast enough to bring it
all to the surface. I have now at least 6 stories welling up
in me, and feel, at last, that I can coin all my thoughts
into words. Not but w-hat an infinite number of problems
remain; but I have never felt this rush and urgency be-
fore. I believe I can write much more quickly; if writing
it is— this dash at the paper of a phrase, and then Uic
typing and retyping— trying it over; the actual writing
being now like the sweep of a brush; I fill it up aftciAvards.
Now suppose I might become one of the interesting — I
will not say great— but interesting novelists? Oddly, for
all my vanity, I have not until now had much faith in
my novels, or thought them my own expression.

Mondayy April 2 yth

The Common Reader was out on Thursday: this is Monday
and so far I have not heard a word about it, private or
public; it is as if one tossed a stone into a pond and the
waters closed Nvithout a ripple. And I am perfectly con-
tent, and care less than I have ever cared, and make this
note just to remind me next time of the sublime progress

NINETEEN TWENTY-I- 1 VE

75

of my books. I have been sitting to Vogue, the Becks that
is, in their mews, which Mr. Woolncr built as liis studio,
and perhaps it was there he thought of my mother, whom
he wished to marr)', I think. But my present reflection is

that people have any number of states of
Second selves consciousness: and I should like to invest!-
is what I mean, gate the party consciousness, tlie frock

consciousness etc. The fashion world at
the Becks — Mrs. Garland was there superintending a dis-
play — is certainly one; where people secrete an envelope
which connects them and protects them from others, like
myself, who am outside the envelope, foreign bodies.
These states are very difflcult (obviously I grope for words)
but I’m always coming back to it. The party conscious-
ness, for example: Sybil’s consciousness. You must not
break it. It is something real. You must keep it up — con-
spire together. Still I cannot get at what I mean. Then I
meant to dash off Graves before I forget him.

Friday, May ist

This is a note for future reference, as they say. The
Common Reader came out 8 days ago and so far not a single
review has appeared, and nobody has written to me or
spoken to me about it, or in any way acknowledged the
fact of its e.xistencc; save Maynard, Lydia, and Duncan.
Clive is conspicuously dumb; Mortimer has flu and can’t
review it; Nancy saw him reading it, but reported no
opinion; all signs which point to a dull chill depressing
reception; and complete failure. I have just come through
the hoping fearing stage and now see my disappointment
floating like an old bottle in my wake and am off on fresh
adventures. Only if the same thing happens to Dalloway
one need not be surprised. But I must write to Gwen.

Monday, May 4th

This is the temperature chart of a book. We went to
Cambridge, and Goldie said he thought me the finest liv-
ing critic: said, in his Jerky angular way: “Who wrote

-6 A WRITER’S DIARY

that extraordinarily good article on the Elizabethans two
or three months ago in the Lit. Sup.V' I pointed to my
breast. Now there’s one sneering review in Country Ltje,
almost inarticulate with feebleness, tr>'ing to say what a
Common reader is, and another, says Angus, in the oMr,
laughing at Ncssa’s cover. So from this I prognosticate
a good deal of criticism on the ground that I’m obscure
and odd; and some enthusiasm; and a slow sale, and an
increased reputation. Oh yes, my reputation increases.

Saturday^ May gih

As for The Common Reader, the Lit. Sup. had close on two
columns sober and sensible praise— neither one thing nor
the other — my fate in The 'nines. And Goldie Nvrites that
he thinks “this is the best criticism in English— humorous,
witty and profound”. My fate is to be treated to all ex-
tremes and all mediocrities. But I never get an enthusiastic
review in the Lit. Sup. And it will be the same for Dalloway,
which now approaches.

Thursday, May 14th

1 meant to register more of my books’ temperatures,
C.R. does not sell; but is praised. I was really pleased to
open the Manchester Guardian this morning and read Mr.
Fausset on the Art of V. W.; brilliance combined with
integrity; profound as well as eccentric. Now if only The
Times would speak out thus, but The Times mumbles and
murmurs like a man sucking pebbles. Did 1 say that I had
nearly two mumbling columns on me there? But the odd
thing is this: honestly I am scarcely a shade nervous about
Mrs. D. Why is this? Really I am a little bored, for the
first time, at thinking how much I shall have to talk about
it this summer. The truth is that >vriting is the profound
pleasure and being read the superficial. I’m now all
on the strain with desire to stop journalism and get on to
To the Lighthouse. This is going to be fairly short; to have
father’s character done complete in it; and mother’s; and
St. Ives; and childhood; and all the usual things I try

NINETEEN TWENTY-FIVE

77

to put in — life, death, etc. But the centre is father’s char-
acter, sitting in a boat, reciting We perished, each alone,
while he crushes a dying mackerel. However, I must
refrain. I must write a few little stories first and let the
Lighthouse simmer, adding to it between tea and dinner
till it is complete for writing out.

Friday^ May x^th

Two unfavourable reviews of Mrs. D. ( Western Mail
and ScotsTnan) \ unintelligible, not art etc. and a letter from
a young man in Earls Court. “This time you have done
it — you have caught life and put it in a book . . Please
forgive this outburst, but further quotation is unnecessary;
and I don’t think I should bother to write this if I weren’t
jangled. What by? The sudden heat, I think, and the
racket of life. It is bad for me to see my own photograph.

Wednesday^ May igth

Well, Morgan admires. This is a weight off my mind.
Better than Jacob he says: was sparing of words; kissed
my hand, and on going said he was awfully pleased, very
happy (or words to that effect) about it. He thinks — but
I won’t go into detailed criticism; I shall hear more; and
this is only about the style being simpler, more like other
people’s this time.

Monday, June ist

Bank holiday, and we are in London. To record my
books’ fates slightly bores me; but now both arc floated,
and Mrs. D, doing surprisingly well. 1070 already sold.
I recorded Morgan’s opinion; then Vita was a little
doubtful; then Desmond, whom I sec frequently about
his book, dashed all my praise by saying that Logan
thought the C.R. well enough, but nothing more. Desmond
has an abnormal power for depressing me. He takes the
edge off life in some extraordinary way. I love him; but
his balance and goodness and humour, all heavenly in

78 A WRITER’S DIARY

themselves, somehow diminish lustre. I think 1 feel this
not only about my work but about life. However, now
comes Mrs. Hardy to say that Thomas reads, and hears
the C.R. read, with “great pleasure”. Indeed, save for
Logan, and he’s a salt-veined American, I have had high
praise. Also Tauchnilz asks about them.

Sunday^ June 14th

A disgraceful confession — this is Sunday morning and
just after ten, and here I am sitting down to write diary
and not fiction or reviews, without any excuse, except the
state of my mind. After finishing those two books, though,
one can’t concentrate directly on a new one; and then the
letters, the talk, the reviews, all serve to enlarge the pupil
of my mind more and more. I can’t settle in, contract,
and shut myself off. I’ve written 6 little stories, scrambled
them down untidily and have thought out, perhaps too
clearly, To the Lighthouse. And both books so far are suc-
cessful. More of Dalloway has been sold tliis month than
of Jacob in a year. I think it possible we may sell 2,000.
The Common one is making money this week. And I get
treated at great length and solemnity by old gentlemen.

Thursday^ June i8th

No, Lytton docs not like Mrs. Dalloway^ and, what is odd,
I like him all the better for saying so, and don’t much
mind. What he says is that there is a discordancy between
the ornament (extremely beautiful) and what happens
(rather ordinary — or unimportant). This is caused, he
thinks, by some discrepancy in Clarissa herself: he thinks
she is disagreeable and limited, but that I alternately
laugh at her and cover her, very remarkably, with myself.
So that I think as a whole, the book does not ring solid;
yet, he says, it is a whole; and he says sometimes the
writing is of extreme beauty. What can one call it but
genius? he saidl Coming when, one never can tell. Fuller
of genius, he said, than anything I had done. Perhaps, he
said, you have not yet mastered your method. You should

NINETEEN TWENTY-FIVE 79

take something wilder and more fantastic, a framework
that admits of an>ihing, like Tristram Shandy. But then I
should lose touch with emotions, I said. Yes, he am-eed
there must be reality for you to start from. Heaven kno^vs
how you re to do it. But he thought me at the beginning,

U a classic

Mrs. p being, I fear, a Hawed stone. This is very personal

he said, and old fashioned perhaps; yet I think there is
some truth in It, for I remember the night at Rodmell
when I decided to give it up, because I found Clarissa in
some way timelly. 1 hen I invented her memories. But 1
hink some dist^te for her persisted. Yet, again, that was
true to my feeling for Kitty and one must dislike people
in art without its mattering, unless indeed it is true that
certain characters detract from the importance of what
liappens to them. None of this hurts me, or depresses
me. It s odd that when Clive and others (several of them)
say It is a m^terpicce, I am not much exalted; when
Lytton picks holes, I get back into my working fighting

I . u natural to me. I don’t sec

•’"u ^ '>he the sense of cfTort

bold about 1530. better. The sales collapsed completely for

• T 1. .. ^ httlc dribble begins

again. I shall be more than pleased if we sell i«too It’s
now 1250. ^

Saturday^ June 2yth

A bitter cold day, succeeding a chilly windy night, in
which were lit all the Chinese lanterns of Roger’s garden
party. And I do not love my kind. I detest them. I pass
them by. I let them break on me like dirty rain drops.
No longer can I summon up that energy which, when it

stSk nn°tb floating past, or rather

fuses them, nerves them, and so finally fills them and
creates them. Once I had a gift for doing this, and a
p^sion, and it made parties arduous and exciting. So
when I w^e early now I luxuriate most in a whole day
alone; a day of easy natural poses, a little printing-

8o A WRITER’S DIARY

slipping tranquilly off into the deep water of my own
thoughts navigating the underworld; and then replenish-
ing my cistern at night with Swift. I am going to write
about Stella and Swift for Richmond, as a sign of grace,
after sweeping guineas off the Vogue counter. Ihe first
fruit of the C.R. (a book too highly praised now) is a
request to write for the Allnnlic Monthly. So I am getting
pushed into criticism. It is a great standby — this power to
make large sums by formulating views on Stendhal and
Swift. (But while I try to write, I am making up To the
Lighthouse— Xhc sea is to be heard all through it. I have
an idea that I will invent a new name for my books to

supplant “novel”. A new by Virginia Woolf. But

what? Elegy?)

Monday, July 20th

Here the door opened and Morgan came in to ask us
out to lunch with him at the Etoilc, which we did, though
we had a nice veal and ham pie at home (this is in the
classic style of journalists). It comes of Swift perhaps, the
last words of which I have just written, and so fill up
time here. I should consider my work list now. I think a
little story, perhaps a review, this fortnight; having a
superstitious wish to begin To the Lighthouse the first day
at Monk’s House. I now tliink I shall finish it in the two
months there. The word “sentimental” sticks in my
gizzard (I’ll write it out of me in a story — Ann ^Vatkins
of New York is coming on Wednesday to enquire about
my stories). But this theme may be sentimental; father
and mother and child in the garden; the death; the sail
to the Lighthouse. I think, though, that when I begin it
I shall enrich it in all sorts of ways; thicken it; give it
branches — roots which I do not perceive now. It might
contain all characters boiled do\vn; and childhood; and
then this impersonal thing, which I’m dared to do by my
friends, the flight of time and the consequent break of
unity in my design. That passage (I conceive the book
in 3 parts. 1. at the drawing room window; 2. seven
years passed; 3. the voyage) interests me very much. A

NINETEEN TWENTY-FIVE 8i

new problem like that breaks fresh ground in one's mind;
prevents the regular ruts.

What shall I read at Rodmell? 1 have so many books
at the back of my mind. I want to read voraciously and
gather material for the Lives of the Obsaire — which is to
tell the whole history of England in one obscure life after
another. Proust I should like to finish. Stendhal, and then
to skirmish about hither and thitlicr. These 8 weeks at
Rodmell always seem capable of Iiolding an infinite
amount. Shall we buy the house at Southease? I suppose
not.

Thursday, July 30th

I am intolerably sleepy and annulled and so write here.
I do want indeed to consider my next book, but I am
inclined to wait for a clearer head. The thing is I vacillate
between a single and intense character of father; and a
far wider slower book — Bob telling me that my speed

IS terrific and distinctive. My summer’s wanderings with
the pen have I think shown me one or two new dodges
for catching my flics. I have sat here, like an improviser
with his hands rambling over the piano. The result is
perfectly inconclusive and almost illiterate. I want to
learn greater quiet and force. But if I set myself that task,
^n’t I run the risk of falling into the flatness of A*. & i).?
Have I got the power needed if quiet is not to become
insipid? These questions I will leave, for the moment,
unanswered. So that episode is over. But, dear me, I’m
too dull to write and must go and fetch Mr. Dobr^e’s
novel and read it, I think. Yet I have a thousand things
to say. I think I might do something in To the Lighthouse,
to split up emotions more completely. I think I’m working
in that direction.

Saturday, September 5th

And why couldn’t I sec or feel that all tiiis time I was
getung a little used up and riding on a flat tyre? So I was,

^ R. C. Trevelyan-

82

A WRITER’S DIARY

as it happened; and fell down in a faint at Charleston,
in the middle of Q,-’s birthday party; and then have lain
about here, in that odd amphibious life of headache, for
a fortnight. This has rammed a big hole in my 8 weeks
which were to be stuffed so full. Never mind. Arrange
whatever pieces come your way. Never be unseated by the
shying of that undependable brute, life, hag-ridden as she
is by my own queer, difliculi. nervous system. Even at
43 I don’t know its workings, for I was saying to myself,
ail the summer, “I’m quite adamant now. I can go through
a tussle of emotions peaceably that two years ago, even,
would have raked me raw.”

I have made a very quick and flourishing attack on To
the Lighthouse, all the same — 22 pages straight off in less
than a fortnight. I am still crawling and easily enfeebled,
but if I could once get up steam again, I believe I could
spin it off with infinite relish. 1 hink what a labour the
first pages of Dalloway were! Each word distilled by a
relentless clutch on my brain.

Monday, September 13th, perhaps

A disgraceful fact — I am writing this at 10 in the morn-
ing in bed in the little room looking into the garden, the
sun beaming steady, the vine leaves transparent green,
and the leaves of the apple tree so brilliant that, as I had
my breakfast, I invented a little story about a man who
wrote a poem, I think, comparing them with diamonds,
and the spiders’ webs, (which glance and disappear
astonishingly) with something or other else; which led
me to think of Marvell on a country life, so to Herrick and
the reflection that much of it was dependent upon the
town and gaiety — a reaction. However, I have forgotten
the facts. I am writing this partly to test my poor bunch
of nerves at the back of my neck — will they hold or ^ve
again, as they have done so often? — for I’m amplubious
still, in bed and out of it; partly to glut my itch (“glut”
an “itch”!) for writing. It is the great solace and scourge.

«3

NINETEEN TWENTY-FIVE
Tuesday, September 22nd

How my handwritin.c; goes down hill! Another sacrifice
10 the Hogarth Press. Yet what I owe the Hogarth Press
is barely paid by the whole of my handwriting. Haven’t
I just written to Herbert Fisher refusing to do a book

for the Home University Series on Post-Victorian?

knowing that I can write a book, a better book, a book
off my own bat, for the Press if I wish! To think of being
battened down in the hold of those University Dons fairly
makes my blood run cold. Yet I’m the only woman in
England free to write what I like. The others must be
thinking of series and editors. Yesterday I heard from
Harcourt Brace that Mrs. D. and C.R. arc .selling 148 and
73 weekly — isn’t that a surprising rate for the fourth
month? Doesn’t it portend a bathroom and a w.c., either
here or Southease? I am writing in the watery blue sun-
set, the repentance of an ill tempered morose day, wliich
vanished, the clouds, I have no doubt, showing gold over
the downs, and leaving a soft gold fringe on the top there.

Tuesday, December yth

I am reading the Passage to India, but will not c.xpaliatc
here, as I must elsewlicrc. This book for the H.P. I think
I will find some theory about fiction; I shall read six
novels and start some hares. The one I have in view is
about perspective. But I do not know. My brain may not
last me out. I cannot think closely enough. But I can — if
the C.R. is a test — beat up ideas and express them now
\yithout too much confusion. (By the way, Robert Bridges
likes Mrs. Dalloway, says no one will read it; but it is
beautifully written, and some more, which L., who was
told by Morgan, cannot remember.)

I don’t think it is a matter of “development” but some-
thing to do with prose and poetry, in novels; For instance
Defoe at one end; E. Bronte at the other. Reality some-
thing they put at different distances. One would have to
go into conventions; real life; and so on. It might last me
this theory — but I should have to support it with other

84 A WRITER’S DIARY

tilings. And death— as I always feel— hurrying near. 43:
how many more books? Katie ^ came here; a sort of frame-
work of discarded beauty hung on a battered shape now.
With the firmness of the flesh and the blue of the eye, the
formidable manner has gone. 1 can see her as she was at
22 25 years ago; in a little coat and skirt; very

splendid; eyes half shut; lovely mocking voice; upright;
tremendous; shy. Now she babbles along. , . .

“Rut no duke ever asked me, my dear Virginia. They
called me the Ice Qiiecn. And why did I marry Cromer?

1 loathed Egypt; I loathed invalids. I’ve had two very
happy times in my life — childhood — not when I grew up,
but later, with my boys’ club, my cottage and my chow
— <\ncl now. Now I have all I want. My garden— ^my dog.

1 don’t think her son enters in very largely. She is one
of these cold eccentric great Englishwomen, cnomtously
enjoying her rank and the eminence it lends her in St.
John’s Wood, and now free to poke into all the dusty
holes and corners, dressed like a charwoman, with hands
like apes’ and fingernails clotted Vkdth dirt. She never
stops talking. She lacks much body to her. She has almost
effused in mist. But I enjoyed it, though I think she has
few affections and no very passionate interests. Now, hay-
ing cried my cry, and the sun coming out, to write a list
of Christmas presents.

' I>ady Cromer.

• 22 High Park Gate where V. W. lived unul the age of 17.

1926

Tuesday^ February 23rd

I am blown like an old flag by my novel. Tliis one is
To the Lighthouse. I think it is worth saying lor my own
interest that at last, at last, after that battle Jacob's Room,
tliat agony— all agony but the end— .l/rr. Dalloway, I am
now writing as fast and freely as I have UTiiicn in the
whole of my life; more so — 20 times more so — than any
novel yet. I think this is the proof tliat I was on the right
path; and that what fruit hangs in my soul is to be readied
there. Amusingly, I now invent theories tliat fertility and
fluency are the things: I used to plead for a kind of close,
terse effort. Anyhow lliis goes on all the morning: and I
have the devil’s own work not to be flogging my brain iill
the afternoon. I live entirely in it, and come to the surface
rather obscurely and am often unable to think what to say
when we walk round the Square, which is bad I know.
Perhaps it may be a good sign for the book though. Of
course it is largely known to me: but all my books have
been that. It is, I feel that I can float everything off now;
and “everything” is rather a crowd and weight and con-
fusion in the mind.

Saturday^ February 2yth

I tlunk I shall initiate a new convention for this book
— beginning each day on a new page — my habit in wnting
senous literature. Certainly I have room to waste a little
paper in this year’s book. As for the soul; why did I say
I would leave it out? I forget. And the truth is, one can’t
write directly about the soul. Looked at, it vanishes; but
look at the ceiling, at Grizzle,* at the cheaper beasts in
the Zoo which arc exposed to walkers in Regents Park,
and the soul slips in. It slipped in tltis afternoon. I >\ill
wite that I said, staring at the bison: answering L.
abscntmindedly: but what was I going to write?

* A dog.

85

86

A WRITER’S DIARY

Mrs. Webb’s book has made me think a little what 1
could say of my own life. I read some of 1923 morn-
ing, being headachy again, and taking a delicious draught
of silence. But then there were causes in her life: prayer;
principle. None in mine. Great excitability and scarcli
after something. Great content— almost always enjoying
what I’m at, but with constant change of mood. 1 don’t
tliink I’m ever bored. Sometimes a little stale; but I liave
a power of recovery — which I have tested; and am now
testing for the 50th time. I have to husband my head still
very carefully: but then, as I said to Leonard today, I
enjoy epicurean ways of society; sipping and then shutting
my eyes to taste. I enjoy almost everything. Yet 1 have
some restless searcher in me. Why is there not a discovery’
in life? Something one can lay hands on and say “This
is it”? My depression is a harassed feeling. I’m looking:
but that’s not it— that’s not it. ^Vhat is it? And shall I die
before I find it? Then (as I was walking through Russell
Square last night) I see the mountains in the sky: the great
clouds; and the moon whicli is risen over Persia; I have a
great and astonishing sense of something there, which is
“it”. It is not exactly beauty that I mean. It is that the
thing is in itself enough: satisfactory; achieved. A sense of
my own strangeness, walking on the earth is there too:
of the infinite oddity of the human position; trotting along
Russell Square with the moon up there and those moun-
tain clouds. ^Yho am 1 , what am I, and so on: these ques-
tions are always floating about in me: and then I bump
against some exact fact — a letter, a person, and come to
them again wiili a great sense of freshness. And so it goes
on. But on this showing, which is true, I think, I do fairly
frequently come upon this “it”; and then feel quite at rest.

Tuesday^ March gth

As for Mary’s ‘ party, there, save for the usual shyness
about powder, paint, shoes and stockings, 1 was happy,
owing to the supremacy of literature. This keeps us sweet
and sane. George Moore — me I mean.

’ Mrs. St. John Hutchinson.

NINETEEN TWENTY-SIX 87

He has a pink foolish face; blue eyes like liard marbles;
a crest of snow-white hair; little unmuscular hands; slop-
ing shoulders; a high stomach; neat, purplish well-brushed
clothes; and perfect manners, as I consider them. That is to
say he speaks without fear or dominance; accepting me
on my merits; everyone on their merits. Still in spite of all
uncowed, unbeaten, lively, shrewd. As for Hardy and
Henry James, though, what shall one say?

“I am a fairly modest man; but I admit I think Esther
Waters a better book than Tess. But what is there to be said
for that man? He cannot write. He cannot tell a story.
The whole art of fiction consists in telling a story. Now
he makes a woman confess. How does he do it? In the
third person — a scene that should be moving, impressive.
Think how Tolstoi would have done it!”

But,” said Jack,^ “ War and Peace is the greatest novel
in the world. I remember the scene where Natalia puts
on a moustache and Rostov sees her for the first time as
she is and falls in love with her.”

“No, my good friend, tliere is nothing very wonderful
in that. That is an ordinary piece of observation. But,
my good friend (to me — half hesitating to call me this)
what have you to say for Hardy? You cannot find anything
to say. English fiction is the worst part of English litera-
ture. Compare it with the French — with the Russians.
Henry James wrote some pretty little stories before he
mvented his jargon. But they were about rich people.
You cannot write stories about rich people; because, 1
think he said, they have no instincts. But Henry James
was enamoured of marble balustrades. There was no
passion in any of his people. And Anne Bronte was the
greatest of the Bronte and Conrad could not write,” and
so on. But this is out of date.

Saturday^ March 20th

But what is to become of all these diaries, I asked my-
^If yesterday. If I died, what would Leo make of them?
He would be disinclined to burn them; he could not

* Mr. St. John Hutchinson.

88 A WRITER’S DIARY

publish them. Well, he should make up a book from
them, I think; and then bum the body. 1 daresay there is
a little book in them; if the scraps and scratching were
straightened out a little. God knows. Tliis is dictated by a
slight melancholia, which comes upon me sometimes now
and makes me think I am old; I am ugly. 1 am repeating
things. Yet, as far as I know, as a writer I am only now
writing out my mind.

Friday, April 30th

The last of a wet windy month, excepting the sudden
opening of all the doors at Easter and the summer dis-
played blazing, as it always is, I suppose, only cloud
hidden. I have not said anything about Iwerne Minster.
Now it would amuse me to see what I remember it by.
Cranbournc Chase: the stunted aboriginal forest trees,
scattered, not grouped in cultivations; anemones, blue-
bells, violets, all pale, sprinkled about, without colour,
livid, for the sun hardly shone. Then Blackmore Vale; a
vast air dome and the fields dropped to the bottom; the
sun striking, there, there; a drench of rain falling, like a
veil streaming from the sky, there and there; and the
downs rising, very strongly scarped (if that is the word)
so that they were ridged and lodged; then an inscription
in a church “sought peace and ensured it” and the ques-
tion who wrote these sonorous stylistic epitaphs? — and all
the cleanliness of Iwerne village, its happiness and well-
being, making me ask, as wc tended to sneer, still this
is the right method, surely; and then tea and cream —
— these I remember: the hot baths; my new leather coat;
Shaftesbury, so much lower and less commanding than
my imagination, and the drive to Bournemouth and the
dog and the lady behind the rock, and tlie viewof Swanage,
and coming home.

Yesterday I finished the first part of To the Lighthouse,
and today began the second. I cannot make it out — here
is the most difficult abstract piece of writing — I have to
give an empty house, no people*s characters, the passage
of time, all eyeless and featureless with nothing to cling

NINETEEN TWENTY-SIX 89

to; well, I rush at it, and at once scatter out two pages.
Is It nonsense, is it brilliance? Why am I so flown with
words and apparently free to do exactly what 1 like?
When I read a bit it seems spirited too; needs compress-
ing, but not much else. Compare this dasliing fluency with
Mrs. Dallowqy (save the end). This is not made up- it is
the literal fact. ^

Tuesday^ May 25th

I have finished— sketchily 1 admit— the second part of
r 0 the Ltghthouse~2ix\d may, then, have it all written over
by the end of July. A record. 7 months, if it so turns out

Sunday^ July 2^th

At first I thought it was Hardy, and it was the parlour-
maid, a small thin girl, wearing a proper cap. She came
m with Sliver cake stands and so on. Mrs. Hardy talked
to us about her dog. How long ought we to stay? Can
Mr. Hardy walk much etc. I asked, making conversation
^ 1 knew one would have to. She has the large sad lack-
lustre eyes of a childless woman; great docility and readi-
ne^, as if she had learnt her part; not great alacrity but
resignation, in welcoming more visitors; wears a sprigged
voile dress, black shoes and a necklace. We can’t go far
now, she said, though we do walk every day, because our
dog isn t able to walk far. He bites, she told us. She
became more natural and animated about the dog, who
IS cydcntly tl^ real centre of her thoughts— then the
maid came in. Then again the door opened, more sprucely
and in trotted a little puffy-cheeked cheerful old man!
with an atmosphere cheerful and business-like in address-

!fi?; 'if* doctor’s or solicitor’s, saying

Well now— or words like that as he shook hands. He
w^ dressed in rough grey wth a striped tie. His nose has a
joint in It and the end curves down. A round whitish
lace, the eyes now faded and rather watery, but the whole
aspect cheerful and vigorous. He sat on a three-cornered
chair (I am too jaded with all this coming and going

go A WRITER’S DIARY

to do more than gather facts) at a round table, where
tlicrc were the cake stands and so on; a chocolate roll;
what is called a good tea; but he only drank one cup,
sitting on his three-cornered chair. He was extremely
affable and aware of his duties. He did not let the talk
stop or disdain making talk. He talked of father: said he
had seen me, or it might have been my sister, but he
thought it was me, in my cradle. He had been to Hyde
Park Place— oh, Gate was it. A very quiet street. That was
why my father liked it. Odd to think that in all these
years lie had never been down there again. He went there
often. Your father took my novel — Far From the Madding
Crowd. We stood shoulder to shoulder against the British
public about certain matters dealt with in that novel.
You may have heard. Then he said how some other novel
had fallen through that w-as to appear— tiie parcel had
been lost coming from France — not a very likely thing to
happen, as your father said — a big parcel of manuscript;
and he asked me to send my story. I think he broke all
the Cornhill laws— not to see the whole book; so I sent
it in chapter by chapter and was never late. Wonderful
what youth is! I had it in my head doubtless, but I never
thought twice about it. It came out every month. They
were nervous, because of Miss Thackeray I think. She
said she became paralysed and could not write a word
directly she heard the press begin. I daresay it was bad
for a novel to appear like that. One begins to think what
is good for the magazine, not what is good for the novel.

“You think what makes a strong curtain,” put in Mrs.
Hardy jocularly. She was leaning upon the tea table,
not eating — gazing out.

Then we talked about , manuscripts. Mrs. Smith had
found the MS of F. from the M.C. in a drawer during the
war and sold it for the Red Cross. Now he has his MSS
back and the printer rubs out all the marks. But he wishes
they would leave them as they prove it genuine.

He puts his head down like some old pouter pigeon.
He has a very long head; and quizzical bright cy«, for
in talk they grow bright. He said when he was in the
Strand 6 years ago he scarcely knew where he was and

NINETEEN TWENTY-SIX g,

he used to know it all intimately. He told us that he used
to buy second-hand books — nothing valuable — in ^Vyck
Street. Tlien he wondered why Great James Street should
be so narrow and Bedford Row so broad. He had often
wondered about that. At this rate, London would soon
be unrecognisable. But I shall never go there again.
Mrs. Hardy tried to persuade him that it was an easy
drive— only 6 hours or so. I asked if she liked it, and she
said Granville Barker had told her that when she was in
the nursing home she had “the time of her life”. She knew
everyone in Dorchester but she thought there were more
interesting people in London. Had I often been to Sieg-
fried’s * flat? I said no. Then she asked about him and
Morgan, said he was elusive, as if they enjoyed visits
from him. I said I heard from Wells tliat Mr. Hardy had
been up to London to sec an air raid. “What things they
say! he said. “It was my wife. There was an air raid one
night when we stayed with Barrie. We just heard a little
pop in the distance. The searchlights were beautiful. I
thought if a bomb now were to fall on this flat how many
writers would be lost.” And he smiled, in his queer way,
which is fresh and yet sarcastic a little; anyhow shrewd!
Indeed, there was no trace to my thinking of the simple
peasant. He seemed perfectly aware of everything; in no
doubt or hesitation; having made up his mind; and being
delivered of all his work, so that he was in no doubt
about that either. He was not interested much in liis
novels, or in anybody’s novels: took it all easily and
naturally. “I never took long with them” he said. “The
longest was The Dinnasts (so pronounced).” “But that was
really three books”, said Mrs. Hardy. “Yes; and that took
me SIX years; but not working all the time.” “Can you
write poetry regularly?” I asked (being beset with the
desire to hear him say something about his books; but the
dog kept cropping up. How he bit; how the inspector
came out; how he was ill; and they could do nothing for
Wm.) “Would you mind if I let him in?” asked Mrs.
Hardy, and in came Wessex, a very tousled, rough brown
and white mongrel; got to guard the house, so naturally

^ Siegfried Sassoon.

92 A WRITER’S DIARY

he bites people, said Mrs. H. “Well, I don’t know about
that,” said Hardy, perfectly natural, and not setting much
stock by his poems either it seemed. “Did you write poe^
at the same time as your novels?” I asked. “No,” he said.
“I wrote a great many poems. I used to send them about,
but they were always returned,” he chuckled. “And in
those days I believed in editors. Many were lost — all the
fair copies were lost. But I found the notes and 1 wrote
them from those. I was always finding them. I found one
the other day; but I don’t tliink I shall find any more.

“Siegfried took rooms near here and said he was going
to work very hard, but lie left soon.

“E. M. Forster takes a long time to produce anything
— 7 years,” he chuckled. All this made a great impression
of the ease tvith which he did things. “I daresay Far From
the Madding Crowd would have been a great deal better if I
had written it differently,” he said. But as if it could not
be helped and did not matter.

He used to go to the Lushingtons in Kensington Square
and saw my mother there. “She used to come in and out
when I was talking to your father.”

1 wanted him to say one word about his writing before
we left and could only ask which of his books he would
have chosen if, like me, he had had to choose one to read
in the train. I had taken the Mayor of Casterbridge. “That’s
being dramatised,” put in Mrs. Hardy, and then brought
Life's Little Ironies.

“And did it hold your interest?” he asked. I stammered
that I could not stop reading it, which was true, but
sounded wrong. Anyhow, he was not going to be drawn
and went off about giving a young lady a wedding present.
“None of my books arc fitted to be wedding presents,” he
said. “You must give Mrs. Woolf one of your books,”
said Mrs. Hardy, inevitably. “Yes 1 will. But Tm afraid
only in the little thin paper edition,” he said. I protested
that it would be enough if he wrote his name (then was
vaguely uncomfortable).

Then there was dc la Mare. His last book of stories
seemed to them such a pity. Hardy had liked some of his
poems very much. People said he must be a sinister man

NINETEEN TWENTY-SIX

to write such stories. But he is a very nice man — a very
nice man indeed. He said to a friend wlio begged liim not
to give up poetiy, “I’m afraid poetry is giving up me.”
The truth is he is a very kind man and secs anyone who
wants to see him. He lias i6 people for tiie day sometimes.
“Do you think one can’t write poetry if one sees people?”
I asked. “One might be able to — I don’t see why not.
It’s a question of physical strength,” said Hardy. But
clearly he preferred solitude himself. Always however he
said something sensible and sincere, and thus made the
obvious business of compliment-giving rather unpleasant.
He seemed to be free of it all; very active minded; liking
to describe people; not to talk in an abstract way; for
example Col. La\vrence, bicycling with a broken arm
“held like that” from Lincoln to Hardy, listened at the
door to hear if there was anyone there. “I hope he won’t
commit suicide,” said Mrs. Hardy pensively, still leaning
over the tea cups, gazing despondently. “He often says
things like it, though he has never said quite that perhaps.
But he has blue lines round his eyes. He calls himself
Shaw in the army. No one is to know where he is. But it
got into the papers.” “He promised me not to go into
the air,” said Hardy. “My husband doesn’t like anything
to do with the air,” said Mrs. Hardy.

Now we began to look at the grandfather clock in the
corner. We said we must go— tried to confess we were
only down for the day. I forgot to say that he offered L.
whisky and water, which struck me that he was competent
as a host and in every way. So we got up and signed
Mrs. Hardy’s visitors books; and Hardy took my Life's
Little Ironies off and trotted back with it signed; and
Woolf spelt Wolff, which I daresay had given him some
anxiety. Then Wessex came in again. I asked if Hardy
could stroke him. So he bent down and stroked him, like
the master of the house. Wessex went on wheezing away.

There was not a trace anywhere of deference to editors,
or respect for rank or extreme simplicity. What impressed
me was his freedom, ease and vitaUty. He seemed very
Great Victorian” doing the whole thing with a sweep of
his hand (they are ordinary smallish, curled up hands)

94 A WRITER’S DIARY

and setting no great stock by literature; but immensely
interested in facts; incidents; and somehow, one could
imagine, naturally swept off into imagining and creating
without a thought of its being difficult or remarkable;
becoming obsessed; and living in imagination. Mrs. Hardy
thrust his old grey hat into his hand and he trotted us
out on to the road. “Where is that?” I asked Inm, point-
ing to a clump of trees on the down opposite, for his
house is outside the town, with open country (rolling,
massive downs, crowned with little tree coronets before
and behind) and he said, with interest, “That is Wey-
mouth. We see the lights at night — not the lights them-
selves, but the reflection of them.” And so we left and he
trotted in again.

Also I asked him if I might sec the picture ofTcss which
Morgan had described, an old picture: whereupon he led
me to an awful engraving of Tess coming into a room
from a picture by Herkomer. “That was rather my idea of
her,” he said. But I said I had been told he had an old
picture. “That’s fiction,” he said. “I used to see people
now and tlien with a look of her.”

Also Mrs. Hardy said to me “Do you know Aldous
Huxley?” I said 1 did. They had been reading his book,
which she thought “very clever”. But Hardy could not
remember it: said his wife had to read to him — his eyes
were now so bad. “They’ve changed everything now,”
he said. “We used to think there was a bcginiung and a
middle and an end. We believed in the Aristotelian theory.
Now one of those stories came to an end with a woman
going out of the room.” He chuckled. But he no longer
reads novels. The whole thing — literature, novels etc., all
seemed to him an amusement, far away too, scarcely to
be taken seriously. Yet he had sympathy and pity for
those still engaged in it. But what his secret interests and
activities arc — to what occupation he trotted off when
we left him — I do not know. Small boys write to him from
New Zealand and have to be answered. They bring out
a “Hardy number” of a Japanese paper, which he pro-
duced. Talked too about Blunden. I think Mrs. Hardy
keeps him posted in the doings of the younger poets.

NINETEEN TWENTY-SIX

95

RODMELL 1926

As I am not going to milk my brains for a week, I shall
here ^vTite the first pages of the greatest book in the
world. This is what the book would be that was made
entirely solely and with integrity of one’s thoughts. Sup-
pose one could catch them before they became “works of
art”? Catch them hot and sudden as they rise in the mind
— walking up Asheham hill for instance. Of course one
cannot; for the process of language is slow and deluding.
One must stop to find a word. Then, there is the form of the
sentence, soliciting one to fill it.

Art and thought

What I thought was this: if art is based on thought, what
IS the transmuting process? I was telling myself the story of
our visit to the Hardys, and I began to compose it; that is
to say to dwell on Mrs. Hardy leaning on the table, look-
ing out, apathetically, vaguely, and so would soon bring
everything into harmony with that as the dominant theme.
But the actual event was dificrent.

Next Writing by living people

I scarcely ever read it. But, owing to his giving me the
books, am now reading C. by M. Baring. I am surprised
to find it as good as it is. But how good is it? Easy to say
It is not a great book. But what qualities does it lack?
That it adds nothing to one’s vision of life, perhaps. Yet
It is hard to find a serious flaw. My wonder is that entirely
second rate work like this, poured out in profusion by at
least 20 people yearly, I suppose, has so much merit.
Never reading it, I get into the way of thinking it non-
^^tent. So it is, speaking with the utmost strictness.
That IS, It will not exist in 2026; but it has some existence
now, which puzzles me a little. Now Clarissa bores me;
yet I feel this is important. And why?

My own brain

Here is a whole nervous breakdown in miniature. Wc
came on Tuesday. Sank into a chair, could scarcely rise;
everything insipid; tasteless, colourless. Enormous desire

A WRITER’S DIARY

96

for rest. Wednesday — only wish to be alone in the open
air. Air delicious — avoided speech; could not read.
Thought of my own power of writing with veneration, as
of something incredible, belonging to someone else; never
again to be enjoyed by me. Mind a blank. Slept in my
chair. Thursday. No pleasure in life whatsoever; but felt
perhaps more attuned to existence. Character and idiosyn-
cracy as Virginia Woolf completely sunk out. Humble and
modest. Difficulty in thinking w'hat to say. Read auto-
matically, like a cow chewing cud. Slept in chair. Friday:
sense of physical tiredness; but slight activity of the brain.
Beginning to take notice. Making one or two plans. No
power of phrase-making. Difficulty in writing to Lady
Colcfax. Saturday (today) much clearer and lighter.
Thought I could write, but resisted, or found it impossible.
A desire to read poetry set in on Friday. This brings back
a sense of my own individuality. Read some Dante and
Bridges, without troubling to understand, but got pleasure
from them. Now I begin to wish to write notes, but not
yet novel. But today senses quickening. No “making up”
power yet: no desire to cast scenes in my book. Curiosity
about literature returning; want to read Dante, Havelock
Ellis and Berlioz autobiography; also to make a looking
glass with shell frame. These processes have sometimes
been spread over several weeks.

Proportions changed

That in the evening, or on colourless days, the pro-
portions of the landscape change suddenly. I saw people
playing stoolball in the meadow; they appeared sunk far
down on a flat board; and the downs raised high up and
mountainous round them. Detail was smoothed out. This
was an extremely beautiful effect: the colours of the
women’s dresses also showing very bright and pure in the
almost untinted surroundings. I knew, also, that the pro-
portions were abnormal — as if I were looking between my
legs.

Second-Rate Art

i.e. C., by Maurice Baring. Within its limits, it is not
second rate, or there is nothing markedly so, at first go off.

NINETEEN TWENTY-SIX 97

The limits are the proof of its non-existence. He can only
do one thing; himself to wit; charming, clean, modest,
sensitive Englishman. Outside that radius and it does not
carry far nor illumine much, all is— as it should be —
light, sure, proportioned, affecting even; told in so well
bred a manner that nothing is exaggerated, all related,
proportioned. I could read tliis for ever, I said. L. said
one would soon be sick to death of it.

Wandfrvogeln

of the sparrow tribe. Two resolute, sunburnt, dusty
girls in jerseys and short skirts, with packs on their backs,
city clerks, or secretaries, tramping along the road in the
hot sunshine at Ripe. My instinct at once throws up a
screen, which condemns them: I think them in every way
arigular, awkward and self-assertive. But all this is a great
mistake. These screens shut me out. Have no screens, for
screens are made out of our own integument; and get at
the thing itself, which has nothing whatever in common
with a screen. The screen-making habit, though, is so
universal that probably it preserves our sanity. If we had
not tl^ device for shutting people off from our sympathies
we might perhaps dissolve utterly; separateness would be
impossible. But the screens are in the excess; not the
sympathy.

Returning health

This is shown by the power to make images; the sug-
gestive power of every sight and word is enormously in-
creased. Shakespeare must have had this to an extent
which makes my normal state the state of a person blind,
deaf, dumb, stone-stockish and fish-blooded. And I have
it compared with poor Mrs. Bartholomew almost to the
extent that Shakespeare has it compared with me.

Bank Holiday

Very fat woman, girl and man spend Bank Holiday— a
day of complete sun and satisfaction — looking up family
graves in the churchyard. 23 youngish men and women
spend it tramping along with ugly black boxes on shoulders
and arms, taking photographs. Man says to woman,

gS A WRITER’S DIARY

“Some of these quiet villages don’t seem to know it’s
Bank Holiday at all” in a tone of superiority and slight
contempt.

The Married Relation

Arnold Bennett says that the horror of marriage lies in
its “dailiness”. All acuteness of relationship is rubbed
away by this. The truth is more like this: life — say 4 days
out of 7 — becomes automatic; but on the 5th day a bead
of sensation (between husband and wife) forms which is
all the fuller and more sensitive because of the automatic
customary unconscious days on cither side. That is to say
the year is marked by moments of great intensity. Hardy’s
“moments of vision”. How can a relationship endure for
any length of time except under these conditions?

Fridayy September 3rd

Women in tea garden at Bramber — a sweltering hot
day: rose trellises; white-washed tables; lower middle
classes; motor omnibuses constantly passing; bits of grey
stone scattered on a paper-strewn greensward, all that’s
left of the Castle.

Woman leaning over the tabic, taking command of the
treat, attended by two elder women, whom she pays for
to girl waitress (or marmalade coloured fat girl, with a
body like the softest lard, destined soon to marry, but as
yet only 16 or so).

Woman: What can we have for tea?

Girl [very bored, arms akimbo ) : Cake, bread and butter,
tea. Jam?

Woman: Have the wasps been troublesome? They get
into the jam — (as if she suspected the jam would not be
worth having).

Girl agrees.

Woman: Ah, wasps have been very prominent this year.

Girl: That’s right.

So she doesn’t have jam.

This amused me, I suppose.

NINETEEN TWENTY-SIX gg

For the rest, Charleston, Tilton,* To the Lighthouse, Vita,
expeditions: the summer dominated by a feeling of wash-
ing in boundless warm fresh air — such an August not
come my way for years; bicycling; no settled work done,
but advantage taken of air for going to the river or over
the downs. The novel is now easily within sight of the end,
but this, mysteriously, comes no nearer. I am doing Lily
on the lawn; but whether it’s her last lap, I don’t know.
Nor am I sure of the quality; the only certainty seems to
be that after tapping my antennae in the air vaguely for
an hour every morning I generally write with heat and
ease till 12.30; and tlius do my two pages. So it will be

done, written over tliat is, in 3 weeks, I
5ih September, forecast, from today. What emerges? At

this moment I’m casting about for an end.
Fhe problem is how to bring Lily and Mr. R. togctlicr
and make a combination of interest at the end. I am
feathering about with various ideas. The last chapter
which I begin tomorrow is In the Boat: I had meant to
end with R. climbing on to the rock. If so, what becomes
of Lily and her picture? Should there be a final page
about her and Carmichael looking at the picture and
summing up R.’s character? In that case I lose the inten-
sity of the moment. If this intervenes between R. and the
lighthouse, there’s too much chop and change, I think.
Could I do it in a parenthesis? So that one had the sense
of reading the two things at the same time?

I shall solve it somehow, I suppose. Then I must go
on to the question of quality. I think it may run too fast
and free and so be rather thin. On the other hand, I think
it is subtler and more human than Jacob's Room and Mrs.
Dalloway. And I am encouraged by my own abundance
as I write. It is proved, I think, that what I have to say is
to be said in this manner. As usual) side stories arc sprout-
ing in great variety as I wind this up: a book of characters;
the whole string being pulled out from some simple sen-
tence, like Clara Pater’s “Don’t you find that Barker’s
pins have no points to them?” I think I can spin out all
their entrails this way; but it is hopelessly undramatic. It

* The Keynes’s house.

lOO

A WRITER’S DIARY

is all in oratio obliqua. Not quite all; for I have a few
direct sentences. The lyric portions of To the Lighthouse
are collected in the lo-year lapse and don’t interfere with
the text so much as usual. I feel as if it fetched its circle
pretty completely this time; and I don’t feel sure what the
stock criticism will be. Sentimental? Victorian?

Then I must begin to plan out my book on literature
for the Press. Six chapters. Why not groups of ideas, under
some rough heading — for example: Symbolism. God.
Nature. Plot. Dialogue. Take a novel and see what the
component parts arc. Separate this and bring under them
instances of all the books which display them biggest.
Probably this would pan out historically. One could spin
a theory which would bring the chapters together. I don’t
feel that I can read seriously and exactly for it. Rather I
want to sort out all the ideas that have accumulated in me.

Then I want to write a bunch of “Outlines” to make
money (for under a new arrangement, wc’rc to share any
money over £200 that I make); this I must leave rather
to chance, according to what books come my way. I am
frightfully contented these last few days, by the way. I
don’t quite understand it. Perhaps reason has something
to do with it.

Monday^ September 13th

The blessed thing is coming to an end I say to myself
with a groan. It’s like some prolonged rather painful and
yet exciting process of nature, which one desires inex-
pressibly to have over. Oh the relief of waking and think-
ing it’s done — the relief and the disappointment, I suppose.
I am talking of To the Lighthouse. I am exacerbated by the
fact that I spent four days last week hammering out de
Quinccy, which has been lying about since June; so re-
fused ;^30 to write on Willa Gather; and now shall be quit
in a week I hope of this unprofitable fiction and could
have wedged in Willa before going back. So I should have
had 3^70 of my year’s 3^^200 ready made by October.
(My greed is immense; I want to have 3^50 of my own in
the Bank to buy Persian carpets, pots, chairs etc.) Curse

lOl

NINETEEN TWENTY-SIX

Richmond, Curse the Times, Curse my own procrastin-
ations and nerves. I shall do Cobden Sanderson and
Mrs. Hemans and make something by them however.
As for the book — Morgan said he felt “This is a failure,”
as he finished the Passage to India. I feel — what? A little
stale this last week or two from steady \sTiting. But also
a little triumphant. If my feeling is correct, this is the
greatest stretch I’ve put my method to, and I think it
holds. By this I mean that I have been dredging up more
feelings and characters, I imagine. But Lord knows, until
I look at my haul. This is only my own feeling in process.
Odd^how I’m haunted by that damned criticism of Janet
Case’s “it’s all dressing . . . technique. {Mrs. Dalloway).
The Common Reader has substance.” But then in one’s
strained state any fly has liberty to settle and it’s always
the gadflies. Muir praising me intelligently has com-
paratively little power to encourage — when I’m working,
that is — when the ideas halt. And this last lap, in the
boat, is hard, because the material is not so rich as it
was with Lily on the lawn. I am forced to be more direct
and more intense. I am making more use of symbolism,
I observe; and I go in dread of “sentimentality”. Is the
whole theme open to that charge? But I doubt that any
theme is in itself good or bad. It gives a chance to one’s
peculiar qualities — that’s all.

Thursday, September 30th

I wished to add some remarks to this, on the mystical
side of this solicitude; how it is not oneself but something
m the universe that one’s left with. It is this that is frighten-
ing and exciting in the midst of my profound gloom,
depression, boredom, whatever it is. One sees a fin passing
for out. What image can I reach to convey what I mean?
Really there is none, I think. The interesting thing is that
in all my feeling and thinking I have never come up
against this before. Life is, soberly and accurately, the
oddest affair; has in it the essence of reality. I used to feel
this as a child — couldn’t step across a puddle once, I
remember, for thinking how strange — what am I? etc.

102

A WRITER’S DIARY

But by writing I don’t reach anything. All I mean to make
is a note of a curious state of mind. I hazard the guess that
it may be the impulse behind another book.^ At present
my mind is totally blank and virgin of books. I want to
watch and see how the idea at first occurs. I want to trace
my own process.

Tuesday^ November 23rd

I am re-doing six pages of Lighthouse daily. This is not,

I think, so quick as Mrs. D : but then I find much of it very
skctcliy and have to improvise on the typcNvriter. This 1
find much easier than re-writing in pen and ink. My
present opinion is that it is easily the best of my books:
fuller than J.'s R. and less spasmodic, occupied with more
interesting things than Afrs. Z)., and not complicated with
all that desperate accompaniment of madness. It is freer
and subtler, I think. Yet I have no idea yet of any other
to follow it: which may mean that I have made my method
perfect and it will now stay like this and serve whatever
use I wish to put it to. Before, some development of
method brought fresh subjects in view, because I saw the
chance of being able to say them. Yet I am now and then
liauntcd by some semi-mystic very profound life of a
woman, which shall all be told on one occasion; and time
shall be utterly obliterated; future shall somehow blossom
out of the past. One incident — say the fall of a flower —
might contain it. My theory being that the actual event
practically docs not exist — nor time cither. But I don’t
want to force this. I must make up my series book.

' Perhaps 77 u IVaoes or Moths (Oct. 1929).

1927

Friday^ January 14th

This is out of order, but I have no new book and so must
record here (and it was here I recorded the beginning of
the Lighthouse) must record here the end. This moment I
have finished the final drudgery. It is now complete for
Leonard to read on Monday. Thus I have done it some
days under the year and feel thankful to be out of it again.
Since October 25th I have been revising and retyping
(some parts three times over) and no doubt I should work
at it again; but I cannot. What I feel is that it is a hard
muscular book, which at this age proves that I have some-
thing in me. It has not run out and gone flabby: at least
such is my feeling before reading it over.

Sundayy January 23rd

Well Leonard has read To the Lighthouse and says it is
much my best book and it is a “masterpiece”. He said this
without my ^king. I came back from Knolc and sat with-
out asldng him. He calls it entirely new ‘a psychological
poemMs his name for it. An improvement upon Dalloway\
more interesting. Having won this great relief, my mind
dismisses the whole thing, as usual, and I forget it and
shall only wake up and be worried again over proofs and
then when it appears.

Saturdayy February 12th

X’s prose is too fluent. IVe been reading it and it makes
my pen run. When I’ve read a classic I am curbed and —
not castrated; no, the opposite; I can’t think of the word

at the moment. Had I been writing “Y ” I should

have run off whole pools of this coloured water; and then
(I tWnk) found my own method of attack. It is my dis-
tinction as a writer I think to get this clear and my expres-
sion exact. Were I writing travels I should wait till some

103

,04 A WRITER’S DIARY

angle emerged and go for that. The method of ^vriting
smooth narration can’t be right; things don’t happen in
one’s mind like that. But she is very skilful and golden
voiced. Tliis makes me tliink that I have to read To the
Lighthouse tomorrow and Monday, straight through in
print; straight through, owing to my curious methods, for
the first time. I want to read largely and freely once; then
to niggle over details. I may note that the first symptoms
of Lighthouse are unfavourable. Roger it is clear did not
like “Time Passes”; Harpers and the Forum have refused
serial rights; Brace writes, I think, a good deal less enthusi-
astically than of Mrs. D. But these opinions refer to the
rough copy, unrevised. And anyhow I feel callous: L.’s
opinion keeps me steady; I’m neither one thing nor the
other.

Monday, February 2ist

Why not invent a new kind of play; as for instance:

Woman thinks . . .

He docs.

Organ plays.

She writes.

They say:

She sings.

Night speaks
They miss

I think it must be something on this line — tltough I
can’t now see what. Away from facts; fi-ce; yet concen-
trated; prose yet poetry; a novel and a play.

Monday, February 28th

But I intend to work harder and harder. If they — the
respectables, my friends, advise me against the Lighthouse,
I shall write memoirs; have a plan already to get historical
manuscripts and write Lives of the Obscure’, but why do I
pretend I should take advice? After a holiday the old ideas
will come to me as usual; seeming fresher, more important

NINETEEN TWENTY-SEVEN 105

than ever; and I shall be off again, feeling that extra-
ordina^ exhilaration, that ardour and lust of creation —
which is odd, if what I create is, as it well may be, wholly
bad.

Monday, March 14th

Faith Henderson * came to tea; and, valiantly beating
the waters of conversation, I sketched the possibilities
which an unattractive woman, penniless, alone, might
yet bring into being. I began imagining the position —
how she would stop a motor on the Dover road and so get
to Dover; cross the channel etc. It struck me, vaguely,
that I might write a Defoe narrative for fun. Suddenly
between twelve and one I conceived a whole fantasy to be
called “The jessamy Brides” — why, I wonder? I have
rayed round it several scenes. Two women, poor, solitary
at the top of a house. One can sec anything (for this is all
fantasy) the Tower Bridge, clouds, aeroplanes. Also old
men listening in the room over the way. Everything is to
be tumbled in pell mell. It is to be written as I write
letters at the top of my speed; on the ladies of Llangollen;
on Mrs. Fladgate; on people passing. No attempt is to be
made to realise the character. Sapphism is to be sug-
gested. Satire is to be the main note — satire and wildness.
The ladies are to have Constantinople in view. Dreams
ot golden domes. My own lyric vein is to be satirised.
Everything mocked. And it is to end with three dots . . .
so. For the truth is I feel the need of an escapade after

these serious poetic experimental books
Orlando leading whose form is always so closely considered,
to The Wooes. I want to kick up my heels and be off. I
(8 July 1933). want to embody all those innumerable

little ideas and tiny stories which flash into
my mind at all seasons. I think this will be great fun to
write; and it will rest my head before starting the very
serious, mystical poetical work which I want to come next.
Meanwhile, before I can touch the Jessamy Brides, I have
to write my book on fiction and that won’t be done till
* Wife of Hubert (later Sir Hubert) Henderson.

io6 A WRITER’S DIARY

January, I suppose. I might dash off a page or two now
and then by way of experiment. And it is possible that the
idea will evaporate. Anyhow this records the odd horrid
unexpected way in which these things suddenly create
themselves — one thing on top of another in about an hour.
So I made up Jacob's Room looking at the fire at Hogarth
House; so I made up the Lighthouse one afternoon in the
Square here.

Monday, March 21st

My brain is ferociously active. I want to have at my
books as if I were conscious of the lapse of time; age and
death. Dear me, how lovely some parts of the Lighthouse
are! Soft and pliable, and I think deep, and never a word
wrong for a page at a time. This I feel about the dinner
parly and the children in the boat; but not of Lily on the
lawn. That I do not much like. But I like the end.

Sunday, May isl

And then I remember how my book is coming out.
People will say I am irreverent — people will say a thousand
things. But I think, honestly, I care very little this time-
even for the opinion of my friends. I am not sure if it is
good; I was disappointed when I read it through the first
time. Later I liked it.. Anyhow it is the best I can do. But
would it be a good thing to read my things when they are
printed, critically? It is encouraging that in spite of
obscurity, affectation and so on my sales rise steadily.
We have sold, already, 1220 before publication, and I
think it will be about 1500, which for a writer like I am
is not bad. Yet, to show I am genuine, I find myself
thinking of other things with absorption and forgetting
that it will be out on Thursday.

Thursday, May jth

Book out. We have sold (I think) 1690 before publica-
tion — twice Dalloway. I write however in the shadow of

NINETEEN TWENTY-SEVEN 107

the damp cloud of The Times Lit. Sup. review, whicli is an
exact copy of the J.^s /?., Sirs. Dalloway review, gentle-
manly, kindly, timid, praising beauty, doubting character,
and leaving me moderately depressed. I am anxious about
“Time Passes.” Think the whole thing may be pro-
nounced soft, shallow, insipid, sentimental. Yet, honestly,
I don’t much care; want to be let alone to ruminate.

Wednesday, May nth

My book. What is the use of saying one is indifferent
to reviews when positive praise, though mingled with
blame, gives one such a start on, that instead of feeling
dried up, one feels, on the contrary, flooded with ideas?
I gather from vague hints, through Margery Joad,
through Clive, that some people say it is my best book.
So far Vita praises; Dotty ‘ enthuses; an unknown donkey
writes. No one has yet read it to the end, I daresay; and I
shall hover about, not anxious but worried for two more
weeks, when it will be over.

Monday, May i6tk

The book. Now on its feet so far as praise is concerned.
It has been out 10 days: Thursday a week ago. Nessa
enthipiastic — a sublime, almost upsetting spectacle. She
says it is an amazing portrait of mother; a supreme por-
trait painter; has lived in it; found the rising of the dead
almost painflil. Then Ottoline, then Vita, then Charlie,
then Lord Olivier, then Tommie, then Clive.

Saturday, June i3th

This b a terribly thin diary for some reason. Half the
year has been spent and left only these few sheets. Perhaps
I have been writing too hard in the morning to write here
ako. Three weeks wiped out by headache. Wc had a week
at Rodmell, of which I remember various sights, sud-
denly unfolding before me spontaneously (for example,

* Dorothy Wellesley, later Duchess of Wellington.

,o8 A WRITER’S DIARY

the village standing out to sea in the June night, houses
seeming ships; the marsh a fiery foam) and the immense
comfort of lying there lapped in peace. I lay out all day
in the new garden, with the terrace. It is already being
made. There were blue tits nested in the hollow neck of
my Venus. Vita came over one very' hot afternoon and we
walked to the river with her. Pinker * now swims after
Leonard’s stick. I read— any trash; Maurice Baring;
sporting memoirs. Slowly ideas began trickling in; and
then suddenly 1 rhapsodised (the night L. dined with the
Apostles) and told over the story of the Moths, which I
think I will write very quickly, perhaps in between chap-
ter's of that long impending book on fiction. Now the
Moths will I think fill out the skeleton which I dashed in
here; the play-poem idea; the idea of some continuous
stream, not solely of human thought, but of the
Tht Wavu. ship, the night etc, all flowing together: inter-
sected by the arrival of the bright moths. A
man and a woman arc to be sitting at table talking. Or
shall they remain silent? It is to be a love story; she is
finally to let the last great moth in. The contr^ts might
be something of this sort; she might talk, or think, about
the age of the earth; the death of humanity; then the
moths keep on coming. Perhaps the man could be left
absolutely dim. France: hear the sea; at night; a garden
under the window. But it needs ripening. 1 do a little work
on it in the evening when the gramophone is playing late
Beethoven sonatas. (The windows fidget at their fastenings
as if we were at sea.)

We saw Vita given the Hawthomden. A horrid show up,
I thought: not of the gentry on the platform — Squire,
Drinkwatcr, Binyon only — of us all; all of us chattering
writers. My word! how insignificant we all looked! How
can we pretend that we are interesting, that our works
matter? The whole business of ^vriting became infinitely
distasteful. There was no one I could care whether he
read, liked, or disliked “my writing”. And no one could
care for my criticism cither; the mildness, the conven-
tionality of them all struck me. But there may be a stream

* A spaniel.

NINETEEN TWENTY-SE VEN 109

of ink in them that matters more than the look of them

so tightly clothed, mild and decorous — showed. I felt there
was no one full grown mind among us. In truth, it was the
thick dull middle class of letters that met, not the
aristocracy.

Wednesday y June 22nd

Women haters depress me and both Tolstoi and Mrs.
Asquith hate women. I suppose my depression is a form of
vanity. But then so are all strong opinions on both sides.
I hate Mrs. A’s hard, dogmatic empty style. But enough:
I shall write about her tomorrow. I write every day about
something and have deliberately set apart a few weeks to
money-making, so that I may put 3^50 in each of our
pockets by September. This will be the first money of my
own since I married. I never felt the need of it till lately.
And I can get it, if I want it, but shirk writing for
money.

Thursday^ June 23rd

This diary shall batten on the leanness of my social life.
Never have I spent so quiet a London summer. It is per-
fectly easy to slip out of the crush unobserved. I have set
up my standard as an invalid and no one bothers me.
No one asks me to do anything. Vainly, I have the feeling
that this is of my choice, not theirs; and there is a luxury
in being quiet in the heart of chaos. Directly I talk and
exert my wits in talk I get a dull damp rather headachy
Quiet brings me cool clear quick mornings, in which
I dispose of a good deal of work and toss my brain into
the air when I take a walk. I shall feel some triumph if I
skirt a headache this summer.

Thursday, June 30th

Now I mtist sketch out the Eclipse.

About 10 on Tuesday night several very long trains,
accurately filled (ours with civil servants) left Kings Gross.

1,0 A WRITER’S DIARY

In our carriage were Vita, Harold, Quentin, L. and I.
This is Hatfield I daresay, I said. I was smoking a cigar.
Then again, This is Peterborough, L. said. Before it got
dark we kept looking at the sky; soft fleecy; but there was
one star, over Alexandra Park. Look, Vita, that’s Alex-
andra Park, said Harold. Tltc Nicolsons got sleepy; H.
curled up with his head on V.’s knee. She looked like
Sappho by Leighton, asleep; so we plunged through the
midlands; made a very long stay at York. Then at 3 "'e
got out our sandwiches and I came in from the W.C. to
find Harold being rubbed clean of cream. Then he broke
the china sandwich box. Here L. laughed without
restraint. Then we had another doze, or the N.’s did;
then here was a level crossing, at which were drawn up
a long line of motor omnibuses and motors, all burning
pale yellow lights. It was getting grey— still a fleecy
mottled sky. Wc got to Richmond about 3.30; it was cold
and the N.’s had a quarrel, Eddie said, about V.’s lug-
gage. VVe went off in the omnibus, saw a vast castle (who
docs that belong to, said Vita, who is interested in castles).
It had a front window added and a light I think burning.
All the fields were abum with June grasses and red tas-
sellcd plants none coloured as yet, all pale. Pale and grey
too were the little uncompromising Yorkshire farms. As
we passed one, the farmer and his wife and sister came out,
all tightly and tidily dressed in black, as if they were
going to church. At another ugly square farm, two
women were looking out of the upper windows. These
had while blinds drawn down half across them. We were
a train of 3 vast cars, one stopping to let the others go
on; all very low and powerful; taking immensely steep
hills. The driver once got out and put a small stone behind
our wheel — inadequate. An accident would have been
natural; there were also many motor cars. These sud-
denly increased as we crept up to the top of Bardon Fell.
Here were people camping beside their cars. Wc got out
and found ourselves very high, on a moor, boggy,
heathery, with butts for grouse shooting. There were
grass tracks here and there and people had already taken
up positions. So wc joined them, walking out to what

! I 1

NINETEEN TWENTY-SEVEN

seemed the highest point looking over Richmond. One
light burned down there. Vales and moors stretched,
slope after slope, round us. It was like tlie Haworth
country. But over Richmond, where the sun was rising,
was a soft grey cloud. We could see by a gold spot where
the sun was. But it was early yet. We had to wait, stamp-
ing to keep warm. Ray had wrapped herself in the blue
striped blanket off a double bed. She looked incredibly
vast and bedroomish. Saxon looked very old. Leonard
kept^ looking at his watch. Four great red setters came
leaping over the moor. There were sheep feeding behind
us. Vita had tried to buy a guinea pig — Quentin advised
a savage — so she observed the animals from time to time.
There were thin places in the clouds and some complete
holes. The question was whether the sun would show
through a cloud or through one of these hollow places
when the time came. We began to get anxious. We saw
rays coming through the bottom of the clouds. Then,
for a moment, we saw the sun, sweeping — it seemed to
be sailing at a great pace and clear in a gap; we had
out our smoked glasses; we saw it crescent, burning red;
next moment it had sailed fast into the cloud again;
only the red streamers came from it; then only a golden
haze, such as one has often seen. The moments were
passing. We thought we were cheated; we looked at the
sheep; they showed no fear; the setters were racing
round; everyone was standing in long lines, rather dig-
nified, looking out. I thought how wc were like very
old people, in the birth of the world — druids on Stone-
henge; (this idea came more vividly in the first pale light
though). At the back of us were great blue spaces in the
cloud. These were still blue. But now the colour was
going out. The clouds were turning pale; a reddish black
colour. Down in the valley it was an extraordinary
scnimble of red and black; there was the one light burn-
ing; all was cloud down there, and very beautiful, so
delicately tinted. Nothing could be seen through the
cloud. The 24 seconds were passing. Then one looked
back again at the blue; and rapidly, very very quickly,
all the colours faded; it became darker and darker as at

112

A WRITER’S DIARY

the beginning of a violent stormj the light sank and sank;
we kept saying this is the shadow; and we thought now it
is over — tins is the shadow; when suddenly the light went
out. We had fallen. It was extinct. There was no colour.
The earth was dead. That was the astonishing moment;
and the next when as if a ball had rebounded the cloud
took colour on itself again, only a sparky ethereal colour
and so the light came back. I had very strongly the feeling
as the light went out of some vast obeisance; something
kneeling down and suddenly raised up w’hen the colours

came. They came back astonish-

The colour for some moments ingly lightly and quickly ^tid
was of the most lovely kind — beautifully in the valley^ and
fresh, various; here blue OVCr the hills — at first witll a

and there brown; all new miraculous glittering and ethc-
rolours, as if washed over reality, later normally almost,
.ind repainted. but with a great sense of relief.

It was like recovery. We had
been much worse than we had expected. We had seen the
world dead. This was within the power of nature. Our
greatness had been apparent too. Now we became Ray in
a blanket, Saxon in a cap etc. We were bitterly cold. I
should say that the cold had increased as the light went
down. One felt very livid. Then — it was over till 1999.
What remained was the sense of the comfort which we
get used to, of plenty of light, and colour. This for some
time seemed a definitely welcome tiling. Yet when it
became established all over the country, one rather
missed the sense of its being a relief and a respite, which
one had had when it came back after the darkness. How
can I express the darkness? It was a sudden plunge, when
one did not expect it; being at the mercy of the sky; our
own nobility; the druids; Stonehenge; and the racing red
dogs; all that was in one’s mind. Also, to be picked out of
one’s London drawing room and set down on the wildest
moors in England, was impressive. For the rest, I remem-
ber trying to keep awake in the gardens at York while
Eddy talked and falling asleep. Asleep again in the train.
It was hot and we were messy. The carriage was full of
things. Harold was very kind and attentive. Eddy was

NINETEEN TVVENTY-SEVEN 113

peevish. Roast beef and pineapple chunks, he said. VVe
got home at 8.30 perhaps.

Tuesday^ September i8th

A thousand things to be written had I time: had I power.
A very little writing uses up my capacity for writing.

Laughton Place and Pliilip Ritchie’s * death.

These as it happened synclironised. When Vita was
here 10 days ago we drove over to Laughton and I broke
in and explored the house. It seemed, that sunny morning,
so beautiful, so peaceful; and as ifit had endless old rooms.
So I come home boiling with the idea of buying it; and so
fired L. that we wrote to the farmer, Mr. Russell, and
waited, all on wires, edgy, excited for an answer. He came
himself, after some days; and we were to go and see it.
This arranged, and our hopes very high, I opened the
Morning Post and read the death of Philip Ritchie. “He
can’t take houses, poor Philip” I thought. And then the
usual procession of images went through my mind. Also, I
^nk for the first time, I felt this death leaves me an elderly
luggard; makes me feel I have no right to go on; as if my
Ufc were at the expense of his. And I had not been kind; not
^ked him to dinner and so on. So the two feelings— about
buying the house and his death — fought each other; and
sometimes the house won and sometimes death won; and
we went to sec the house and it turned out unspeakably
dreary; all patched and spoilt; with grained oak and grey
paper; a sodden garden and a glaring red cottage at the
back. I note the strength and vividness of feelings which
suddenly break and foam away. Now I forget to think
about Philip Ritchie.

One of these days, though, I shall sketch here, like a
grand hktorical picture, the outlines of all my friends. I
was thinking of this in bed last night and for some reason
I thought I would be^n with a sketch of Gerald Brenan.
^erc may be something in this idea. It might be a way
ofwnting the memoirs of one’s own times during people’s

^ Son of Lord Ritchie.

,,4 A WRITER’S DIARY

lifetimes. It might be a most amusing book. The question
is how to do it. Vita should be Orlando, a young noble-
man. There should be Lytton; and it should be truthful
but fantastic. Roger. Duncan. Clive. Adrian. Their lives
should be related. But I can think of more books than I
shall ever be able to write. How many little stories come
into my head! For instance: Ethel Sands not looking at
her letters. What this implies. One might write a book
of short significant separate scenes. She did not open her
letters.

Tuesday^ September 25th

On the opposite page I wrote notes for Shelley, I think,
by mistake for my writing book.

Now let me become the annalist of Rodmell.

Thirty five years ago, there were 160 families living
here where there arc now no more than 80. It is a decay-
ing village, which loses its boys to the towns. Not a boy of
them, said the Rev. Mr. Hawkesford,' is being taught to
plough. Rich people wanting weekend cottages buy up
the old peasants’ houses for fabulous sums. Monk’s House
was ofTcred to Mr. H. for we gave £'J0Q. He refused

it, saying he didn’t wish to own country cottages. Now
Mr. Allison will pay £1200 for a couple and we he said
might get ;(^2,ooo for this. He (Hawkesford) is an old
decaying man, run to seed. His cynicism and the pleasant
turn it gives his simple worn out sayings amuses me. He is
sinking into old age, very shabby, loose limbed, wearing
black woollen mittens. His life is receding like a tide,
slowly; or one figures him as a dying candle, whose wick
will soon sink into the warm ^easc and be extinct. To
look at, he is like some aged bird; a little, small featured
face, with heavily lidded smoky bright eyes; his complexion
is still ruddy; but his beard is like an unweeded garden.
Little hairs grow weakly all over his cheeks and two
strands arc drawn, like pencil marks, across his bald head.
He tumbles into an armchair and tells over his stock of
old village stories which always have this slightly mocking

* Rector of Rodmell in 1927.

NINETEEN TWENTY-SEVEN 115

flavour as though, completely unambitious and by no
means successful himself, he recouped himself by laughing
slyly at the humours of the more energetic. The outlay
these flashy newcomers make on their field and farms
makes him sardonic. But he won’t raise a finger either
way; likes his cup of Indian tea, which he prefers to China,
and doesn’t much mind what anybody thinks. He smokes
endless cigarettes and his fingers are not very clean.
Talking of his well, he said “It would be a different thing
if one wanted baths” — which for some 70 years, presum-
ably, he has done without. Then he likes a little practical
talk about Aladdin lamps, for instance, and how the
Rector at Iford has a device by which he makes the globe
of the Veritas lamp, which is clieaper, serv'c. It appears
that the Aladdin costs lod. and 2/-. But it blackens sud-
denly and is useless. Leaning over stiles, it is of lamp
mantles that the two rectors talk. Or he will advise about
making a garage; how Percy should cut a trench and then
old Fears should line the walls with cement. That is what
he advises; and I fancy many many hours of his life have
passed hobnobbing with Percies and Fears about cement
and trenches. Of his clerical character there is little visible.
He would not buy Bowen * a riding school he said; her
sister did that. He didn’t believe in it. She has a school at
Rottingdean, keeps 12 horses, employs grooms and has to
be at it all day, Sundays included. But having expressed
his opinion in the family conclave he would leave it at
that. Mrs. H. would back Bowen. She would get her way.
The Rector would slouch off to his study, where he docs
heaven knows what. I asked him if he had work to do: a
question which amused him a little. Not work, he said;
but a young woman to see. And then he settled into the arm-
chair again and so sat out a visit of over an hour and a half.

Wednesday, October ^Ih

I write in the sordid doss house atmosphere of approach-
ing departure. Pinker is asleep in one chair; Leonard is
signing cheques at the little deal table under the glare of

* Miss Hawkesford.

,,6 A WRITER’S DIARY

ihc lamp. The fire is covered with ashes, since we have
been burning it all day and Mrs. B. never cleans.
Envelopes lie in the grate. I am writing with a pen which
is feeble and wispy; and it is a sharp fine evening with a
sunset, I daresay.

We went to Amberlcy yesterday and think of buying a
house there. For it is an astonishing forgotten lovely place,
between water meadows and downs. So impulsive we both
arc, in spite of our years.

But we are not as old as Mrs. Gray, who came to thank
us for our apples. She won’t send to buy, as it looks like
begging, since we never take money. Her face is cut into
by wrinkles; they make weals across her. She is 86 and
can never remember such a summer. In her youth it was
so hot in April often that they couldn’t bear a sheet on
them. Her youth must have been almost the same time
as my father’s. She is 9 years younger, I make out; bom
in 1841. And what did she see of Victorian England I
wonder.

I can make up situations, but I cannot make up plots.
That is: if I pass a lame girl I can, without knowing I do it,
instantly make up a scene: (now I can’t think of one).
This is the germ of such fictitious gift as I have. And by
the way I get letter after letter about my books and they
scarcely please me.

If my pen allowed, I should now try to make out a
work tabic, having done my last article for the Tribune^
and now being free again. And instantly the usual exciting
devices enter my mind: a biography beginning in the year
1500 and continuing to the present day, called Orlando'.
Vita; only with a change about from one sex to another.
I think, for a treat, I shall let myself dash this in for a
week, while . . .

Saturday y October 22nd

This is a book, I think I have said before, which I write
after tea. And my brain was full of ideas, but I have spent
them on Mr. Ashcroft and Miss Findlater, fervent
admirers.

NINETEEN TWENTY-SEVEN ny

“I shall let myself dash this in for a week” — I have
done nothing, nothing, nothing else for a fortnight; and
am launched somewliat furtively but with all the more
passion upon Orlando: a Biography. It is to be a small
book and ^vTitten by Christmas. I thought I could com-
bine it with Fiction, but once the mind gets hot it can’t
stop: I walk making up phrases; sit, contriving scenes;
am in short in the thick of the greatest rapture known to
me; from which I have kept myself since last February,
or earlier. Talk of planning a book, or waiting for an
idea! Then one came in a rush; I said to pacify myself,
being bored and stale with criticism and faced with that
intolerable dull Fiction, “You shall write a page of a story
for a treat; you shall stop sharp at 1 1.30 and tJien go on
with the Romantics.” I had very little idea what the story
was to be about. But the relief of turning my mind that
way was such that I felt happier than for months; as if
put in the sun, or laid on a cushion; and after two days
entirely gave up my time chart and abandoned myself
to the pure delight of this farce; which I enjoy as much
as I’ve ever enjoyed anytliing; and have written myself
into half a headache and had to come to a halt, like a
tired horse, and take a little sleeping draught last night;
which made our breakfast fiery. I did not finish my egg.
I am writing Orlando half in a mock style very clear and
plain, so that people will understand every word. But the
balance be^cen truth and fantasy must be careful. It is
based on Vita, Violet Trefusis, Lord Lascelles, Knole, etc.

Sunday, November 20th

now snatch a moment from what Morgan calls
life to enter a hurried note. My notes have been few;
hfe a cascade, a glissade, a torrent; all together. I think
on the whole this is our happiest autumn. So much work;
and success now; and life on easy terms; heaven knows
what. My morning rushes, pell mell, from 10 to i. I
wnte so quick I can’t get it typed before lunch. This I
^ppose is the main backbone of my autumn — Orlando.
Never do I feel this, except for a morning or two, writing

Ii8 A WRITER’S DIARY

criticism. Today I began the third chapter. Do I learn
anything? Too much of a joke perhaps for that; yet I
like these plain sentences; and the externality of it for a
change. It is too thin of course; splashed over the canvas;
but I shall cover the ground by January 7th (I say) and
then rc-writc.

Wednesday y November 30th

A hurried note about the lunch party, L. dining at the
Cranium. An art of light talk; about people. Bogey Harris;
Maurice Baring. B. H. “knows” everyone: that is no one.
Freddy Fossle? Oh yes I know him; knows Lady so-and-so.
Knows everyone: can’t admit to not knowing. A polished,
burnished diner out — Roman Catholic. In the middle
M. Baring says: “But Lady B. died this morning.” Sibyl
says: “Say that again.” “But R. M. was lunching with
her yesterday,” says Bogey. “Well it’s in tlic papers she’s
dead,” says M. B. Sibyl says: “But she was quite young.
Lord Ivor asked me to meet the young man his daughter’s
to marry.” “I know Lord Ivor,” says, or would say,
Bogey. “Well it’s odd,” says Sibyl, giving up the attempt
to wrestle with the death of the young at a lunch party.
So on to wigs: “Lady Charlie used to have hers curled
by a sailor on deck before she got up,” says Bogey. “Oh,
I’ve known her all my life. Went yachting witli them.
Lady . . . eyebrows fell into the soup. Sir John Cook was
so fat they had to hike him up. Once he got out of bed
in the middle of die night and fell on tlie floor, where he
lay 5 hours — couldn’t move. B. M. sent me a pear by the
waiter with a long letter.” Talk of houses and periods.
All very smooth and surface talk; depends on Imowing
people; not on saying anything interesting. Bogey’s cheeks
are polished daily.

Tuesday, December 20th

This is almost the shortest day and perhaps the coldest
night of the year. Wc are in the black heart of a terrific
frost. I notice that look of black atoms in a clear air,

NINETEEN TWENTY-SEVEN j,9

wliich for some reason I can never describe to my liking.
The pavement was white with great powdery flakes the
other night, walking back with Roger and Helen; this
was from Wessa s last Sunday — last, I fear, for many a
month. But I have as usual “no time”: let me count the
things I should be doing this deep winter’s night with
Leonard at his last lecture and Pinker asleep in her chair
I should be reading Bagenal’s story; Julian’s play; Lord
Chesterfield s letters; and writing to Hubert (about a
cheque from the JSfation). There is an irrational scale of
values in my mind which puts these duties higher than
mere scribbling.

This flashed to my mind at Nessa’s children’s party last
mght. The little creatures acting moved my infinitely
sentimental throat. Angelica so mature and composed; all
grey and silver; such an epitome of all womanliness; and
such an unopened bud of sense and sensibility; wearing
a grey wig and a sea coloured dress. And yet oddly enough
I scarcely want children of my own now. This insatiable
desire to write something before I die, this ravaging sense
of the shortness and feverishness of life, make me cling,
like a man on a rock, to my one anchor. I don’t like the
physicalness of having children of one’s own. This occurred
to me at Rodmell; but I never wrote it down. I can
dramatise myself a parent, it is true. And perhaps I have
killed the feeling instinctively; or pcrhap.s nature does.

I am still writing tlie third chapter of Orlando. 1 have
had of course to give up the fancy of finishing by February
and printing this spring. It is drawing out longer than I
meant. I have just been thinking over the scene when O.
meets a girl (Nell) in the Park and goes with her to a neat
room m Gcrrard Street. There she will disclose herself.
They will t^lk. This will lend to ^ diversion or two ^bout
women’s love. This will bring in O.’s night life; and her
clients (that’s the word). Then she will sec Dr. Johnson
and perhaps write (I want somehow to quote it) To all
you Ladies. So I shall get some effect of years passing*
and then there will be a description of the lights of the
1 8th Century burning; and the clouds of the 19th Century
rising. Then on to the 19th. But I have not considered

120

A WRITER’S DIARY

this. I want to \sTitc it all over hastily and so keep unity
of tone, which in this book is very important. It has to be
half laughing, half serious; with great splashes of exagger-
ation. Perhaps I shall pluck up courage to ask The Times
for a rise. But could I write for my Annual I would never
write for another paper. How extraordinarily unwilled by
me but potent in its own right, by the way, Orlando was!
as if it shoved cvcr>'thing aside to come into existence.
Yet I see looking back just now to March that it is almost
exactly in spirit, though not in actual facts, the book I
planned then as an escapade; the spirit to be satiric, the
structure wild. Precisely.

Yes, I repeat, a very happy, a singularly happy autumn.
Thursday^ December 22nd

I just open this for a moment, being dull of the head, to
enter a severe reprimand of myself to myself. The value
of society is that it snubs one. I am meretricious, mediocre,
a humbug; am getting into the habit of flashy talk. Tinsel
it seemed last nigitt at the Keynes. I was out of humour
and so could see the transparency of my own sayings.
Dadie said a true tiring too; when V. lets her style get on
top of her, one tliinks only of that; when she uses cliches,
one thinks what she means. But, he says, I have no logical
power and live and write in an opium dream. And the
dream is too often about myself.

Now with middle age drawing on and age ahead it is
important to be severe on such faults. So easily might 1
become a harebrained egotistic woman, exacting compli-
ments, arrogant, narrow, withered. Ncssa’s children (I
always measure myself against her and find her much tire
largest, most humane of the two of us), think of her now
with an admiration that has no envy in it; rvith some trace
of the old childish feeling that we were in league together
against the world; and how proud I am of her triumphant
winning of all our battles; as she takes her way so non-
chalantly, modesdy, almost anonymously, past the goal,
with her children round her; and only a little added
tenderness (a moving thing in her) which shows me that

121

NINETEEN TWENTY SEVEN

she too feels wonder, surprise, at having passed so many
terrors and sorrows safe. . . .

The dream is too often about myself. To correct this;
and to forget one’s own sharp absurd little personality,
reputation and the rest of it, one should read; see out-
siders; think more; \vritc more logically; above all be full
of work; and practise anonymity. Silence in company;
or the quietest statement, not the showiest; is also “medi-
cated” as the doctors say. It was an empty party, rather,
last night. Very nice here, though.

Tuesday, January lyth

Yesterday we went to Hardy’s funeral. VVliat did I
think of? Of Max Beerbohm’s letter, just read; or a lecture
to the Newnhamites about women’s writing. At intervals
some emotion broke in. But I doubt the capacity of the
human animal for being dignified in ceremony. One
catches a bishop’s frown and twitch; sees his polished
shiny nose; suspects the rapt spectacled young priest,
gazing at the cross he carries, of being a humbug; catches
Robert Lynd’s distracted haggard eye; then thinks of
the mediocrity of X.; next here is the coffin, an over-
grown one; like a stage coffin, covered with a white satin
cloth; bearers elderly gentlemen rather red and stiff, hold-
ing to the comers; pigeons flying outside, insufficient
artificial light; procession to poets corner; dramatic “In
sure and certain hope of immortality” perhaps melo-
dramatic. After dinner at Clive’s Lytton protested that
the great man’s novels are the poorest of poor stuff; and
can’t read them. Lytton sitting or lying inert, with hb
eyes shut, or exasperated with them open. Lady Strachey
slowly fading, but it may take years. Over all this broods
for me some uneasy sense of change and mortality and
how partings arc deaths; and then a sense of my own
fame — why should this come over me? and then of its
remoteness; and then the pressure of writing two articles
on Meredith and furbishing up the Hardy. And Leonard
sitting at home reading. And Max’s letter; and a sense of
the futility of it all.

Saturdayy February iith

I am so cold I can hardly hold the pen. The futility of
it all — so I broke off; and have indeed been feeling that
rather persistently, or perhaps I should have written here.
Hardy and Meredith together sent me torpid to bed with

139

NINETEEN TWENTY-EIGHT 123

headache. I know the feeling now, when I can’t spin a
sentence and sit mumbling and turning; and nothing flits
by my brain, which is as a blank window. So I shut my
studio door and go to bed, stuffing my ears with rubber;
and there I lie a day or two. And what leagues I travel in
the time! Such “sensations’* spread over my spine and
head directly I give them the chance; such an exaggerated
tiredness; such anguishes and despairs; and heavenly relief
and rest; and then misery again. Never was anyone so
tossed up and down by the body as I am, I think. But it is
over; and put away. . . .

For some reason, I am hacking rather listlessly at the
last chapter of Orlando^ which was to have been the best.
Always, always the last chapter slips out of my hands.
One get bored. One whips oneself up. I still hope for a
fresh wind, and don’t very much bother, except that I
miss the fun, which was so tremendously lively all October,
November and December. I have my doubts if it is not
empty; and too fantastic to write at such length.

Saturday^ February i8th

And I should be revising I.ord Chesterfield at this
moment, but 1 m not. My mmd is wool-gathering away
about Women and Fiction, which I am to read at Newnham
in May, The mind is the most capricious of insects —
flitting, fluttering. I had thought to write the quickest
most brilliant pages in Orlando yesterday — not a drop
came, all, forsooth, for the usual physical reasons, which
delivered themselves today. It is the oddest feeling: as if
a finger stopped the flow of the ideas in the brain; it is
unsealed and the blood rushes all over the place. Again,
instead of writing O., I’ve been racing up and down the
whole field of my lecture. And tomorrow, alas, wc motor;
for I must get back into the book— which has brightened
the last few days satisfactorily. Not that my sensations in
writing are an infallible guide.

A WRITER’S DIARY

124

Sunday^ March i 8 th

1 have lost my writing board; an excuse for the anemic
state of this book. Indeed I only write now, in between
letters, to say that Orlando was finished yesterday as the
clock struck one. Anyhow the canvas is covered. There
will be three months of close work needed, imperatively,
before it can be printed; for I have scrambled and splashed
and the canvas shows through in a tliousand places. But
it is a serene, accomplished feeling, to write, even pro-
visionally, the End, and we go off on Saturday, \vith my
mind appeased.

I have written this book quicker than any; and it is all
a joke; and yet gay and quick reading I think; a writer’s
Iioliday. I feel more and more sure that I will never write
a novel again. Little bits of rhyme come in. So we go
motoring across France on Saturday and shall be back on
April 17th for the summer. Time flics— oh yes; that sum-
mer should be here again; and I still have the faculty of
wonder at it. The world swinging round again and bring-
ing its green and blue close to one’s eyes.

Thursday^ March 22nd

These arc the last pages at the end of Orlando and it is
twenty five minutes to one; and I have written cvcryUiing
I have to write and on Saturday wc go abroad.

Yes it’s done — Orlando — begun on 8th October, as a
joke; and now rather too long for my liking. It may fall
between stools, be too long for a joke, and too frivolous
for a serious book. All this I dismiss from a mind avid
only of green fields, the sun, wine; sitting doing nothing.
I have been for the last 6 weeks rather a bucket than a
fountain; sitting to be shot into by one person after an-
other. A rabbit that passes across a shooting gallery, and
one’s friends go pop-pop. Heaven be praised, Sibyl today
puts us off; which leaves Dadie only and a whole day's
solitude, please Heaven, tomorrow. But l intend to control
this rabbit-shooting business when I come back. And
money making. I hope to settle in and write one nice little

NINETEEN T WENT Y-E I GHT 125

discreet article for £ 2 ^ each month; and so live; without
stress, and so read — what I want to read. At 46 one must
be a miser; only have time for essentials. But I think I
have made moral reflections enough, and should describe
people, save that, when seen so colourlessly, by duty not
wish, one’s mind is a little slack in taking notes.

Watery blo\vy weather; and this time next week we
shall be in the middle of France.

Tuesday^ April lyih

Home again, as foretold, last night, and to settle the
dust in my mind, write here. Wc have been across France
and back — every inch of that fertile field traversed by
the admirable Singer. And now towns and spires and
scenes begin to rise in my mind as the rest sinks. I see
Chartres in particular, the snail, with its head straight,
marching across the flat country, the most distinguished
of churches. The rose ^vindow is like a jewel on black
velvet. The outside is very intricate yet simple; elongated;
somehow preserved from the fantastic and ornate. Grey
weather dashed all over this; and I remember coming in
at night in the wet often and hearing the rain in hotels.
Often I was bobbing up and down on my nvo glasses of
yin du pays. It was rather a rush and a cram— as these
jumbled notes testify. Once wc were high up on a moun-
tain in a snow storm; and rather afraid of a long tunnel.
Twenty miles often cut us off from civilisation. One wet
afternoon we punctured in a mountain village and I went
in and sat with the family — a nice scrupulous polite
woman^ a girl who was pretty, shy, had a friend called
Daisy at Earlsfield. They caught trout and wild boars.
Then on we went to Florae, where I found a book— Gir-
aidin’s memoirs in the old bookcase that had been sold
with the house. Always some good food and hot bottles
at night. Oh and my prize — £ 1^0 from the French. And
Julian. And one or two hot days and the Pont du Garde
in the sun; and Lrcs Beaux (this is where Dante got his
idea of Hell, Duncan said) and mounting all the time
steadily was my desire for words, till I envisaged a sheet

j 26 a WRITER'S DIARY

of paper and pen and ink as something of miraculous
desirability— could even relish the scratch as if it were a
divine kind of relief to me. And there was St. Remy and
the ruins in the sun. I forget now how it all went — how
thing fitted to thing; but the eminences now emerge and
I noticed how, talking to Raymond at the Nation this
afternoon, we had already pitched on the high points.
Before that, crossing the graveyard ‘ in the bitter windy
rain, we saw Hope * and a dark cultivated woman. But
on they went past us, with the waver of an eye. Next
moment I heard “Virginia” and turned and there was
Hope coming back— “Jane ^ died yesterday,” she mur-
mured, half asleep, talking distraught, “out of herself”.
\Vc kissed by Cromwell’s daughter’s grave, where Shelley
used to walk, for Jane’s death. She lay dead outside the
graveyard in that back room where we saw her lately
raised on her pillows, like a very old person whom life
has tossed up and left; exalted, satisfied, exhausted. Hope
the colour of dirty brown paper. Then to the office, then
home to work here; and now to work and work, as hard
as I can.

Saturday^ April 2ist

And I find myself again in the old driving whirlwind of
writing against time. Have I ever written with it? But I
vow I won’t spend longer at Orlando^ which is a freak; it
shall come out in September, though the perfect artist
would revoke and rewrite and polish — infinitely. But
hours remain over to be filled with reading something or
other — I’m not sure what. What sort of summer do I
desire? Now that I have to spend before July ist (on
our new system) I feel freer; can afford a dress and a hat
and so may go about, a little, if I want. And yet the only
exciting life is the imaginary one. Once I get the wheels
spinning in my head, I don’t want money much, or dress,
or even a cupboard, a bed at Rodmell or a sofa.

* The graveyard at the back of Brunswick Square. Jane Harrison
and Hope Mirrlecs lived in a house near by.

• Hope Mirrlecs. • Jane Harrison.

127

NINETEEN T WENT V-E I GHT
Tuesday^ April 24th

A lovely soaring summer day this; Nvinter sent howling
home to hjs arctic. I was reading Othello last night and was
impressed by the volley and volume and tumble of his
words; too many I should say, were I reviewing for The
Times. He put them in when tension was slack. In the
great scenes, cvcry^tliing fits like a glove. The mind
tumbles and splashes among words when it is not being
urged on; I mean, the mind of a very great master of
words who is writing with one hand. He abounds. The
lesser writers stint. As usual, impressed by Shakespeare.
But my mind is very bare to words — English words — at
the moment; they hit me, hard, I watch them bounce
and spring. IVc read only French for 4 weeks. An idea
comes to me for an article on French; what we know of it.

Friday j May 4th

And now there’s the Fcmina prize to record before 1
go off this brilliant summer day to tea with Miss Jenkins
in Doughty Street. I am going dutifully, not to snub the
female young. But I shall be overpowering I doubt not.
But it is a wonderful day.

The prize was an affair of dull stupid hours; a function;
not alarming; stupefying. Hugh Walpole saying how much
lie disliked my books; rather, how much he feared for his
own. Little Miss Robins, like a redbreast, creeping out.
“I remember your mother — the most beautiful Madonna
and at the same time the most complete woman of the
world. Used to come and sec me in my flat” (I see this as
a summer visit on a hot day). “She never confided. She
would suddenly say something so unexpected, from that
Madonna face, one thought it vicious.** This I enjoyed;
nothing else made much impression. Afterwards there was
the horror of having looked ugly in cheap black clothes.

I cannot control this complex. I wake at dawn with a
start. Also the “fame” is becoming vulgar and a nuisance.
It means nothing; yet takes one’s time. Americans per-
petually. Ctroly; Gaige; offers.

,a8 A WRITER'S DIARY

Thursday y May 31st

The sun is out again; 1 have half forgotten Orlando
already, since L. has read it and it has half passed out of
my possession; I think it lacks the sort of hammering I
should have given it if I had taken longer; is too freakish
and unequal, very brilliant now and tlicn. As for the
cficct of the whole, that I can’t judge. Not, I think,
“important” among my works. L. says a satire.

L. takes Orlando more seriously than I had expected.
Thinks it in some ways better than the Lighthouse', about
more interesting things, and with more attachment to
life and larger. The truth is I expect I began it as a joke
and went on with it seriously. Hence it lacks some unity.
He says it is very oripnal. Anyhow I’m glad to be quit
this time of writing “a novel”; and hope never to be
accused of it again. Now I want to write some very closely
reasoned criticism; book on fiction; an essay of some sort
(but not Tolstoy for The Times\. Dr. Burney's Evening Party
I think for Desmond. And then? I feel anxious to keep
the hatch down; not to let too many projects come in.
Something abstract poetic next time — I don’t know. I
rather like the idea of these Biographies of living people.
Ottolinc suggests herself, but no. Ajid I must tear up all
that manuscript and write a great many notes and adven-
ture out into the world.

June weather. Still, bright, fresh. Owing to the Light-
house (car) I don’t feel so shut in London as usual, and
can imagine the evening on some moor now, or in France
without the envy 1 used to have, in London on a fine
evening. Also London itself perpetually attracts, stimu-
lates, gives me a play and a story and a poem without any
trouble, save that of moving my legs through the streets.
I walked Pinker to Grays Inn Gardens this afternoon and
saw — Red Lion Square: Morris’s house; thought of them
on winters evenings in the 50s; thought we are just as
interesting; saw the Great Ormond Street where a dead
girl was found yesterday; saw and heard the Salvation
Army making Christianity gay for the people; a great deal
of nudging and joking on the part of very unattractive

NINETEEN TWENTY-EIGHT 129

young men and women; making it lively, I suppose; and
yet, to be truthful, when I watch them I never laugh or
criticise but only feel how strange and interesting this is;
wonder what they mean by “Come to the Lord.” I dare-
say exhibitionism accounts for some of it; the applause of
the gallery; this lures boys to sing hymns; and kindle
shop boys to announce in a loud voice that they arc saved.
It is what writing for the Evening Standard is for — and —
I was going to say myself; but so far I have not done it.

Wednesday^ June 20th

So sick of Orlando I can write nothing. I have corrected
the proofs in a week; and cannot spin another phrase. 1
detest my own volubility. Why be always spouting words?
Also I have almost lost the power of reading. Correcting
proofs 5, 6 or 7 hours a day, writing in this and that
meticulously, I have bruised my reading faculty severely.
Take up Proust after dinner and put him down. This is
the worst time of all. It makes me suicidal. Nothing seems
left to do. All seems insipid and worthless. Now I >vill
watch and see how I resurrect. I think I shall read some-
thing — say life of Goethe.

Wednesday y August gth

... I write thus partly in order to slip the burden of
writing narrative, as for instance, we came here ‘ a fort-
night ago. And we lunched at Charleston and Vita came
and we were offered the field and we went to see the farm
at Limekiln. Yet no doubt I shall be more interested,
come 10 years, in facts; and shall want, as I do when I
read, to be told details, details, so that I may look up from
the page and arrange them too, into one of those makings
up which seem so much truer done thus, from heaps of
non-assorted facts, than now I can make them, when it is
almost immediately under my eyes. It was a fine day last
Monday, I rather think; and we drove through Ripe; and
there was a girl and her feller at the gate in a narrow lane;

^ Monki House, RodmelL

130 A WRITER’S DIARY

and wc had to interrupt them to turn the motor. I thought
how the things they had been saying were dammed like
a river, by our interruption; and they stood there half
amused yet impatient, telling us to go to the left, but the
road was up. They were glad when we went; yet gave us
a flash of interest. Who arc these people in their motor
car: wlierc arc they going? and then this sunk beneath
tlic mind and they forgot us completely. Wc went on.
And then we reached tlic farm. The oasts had umbrella
spokes poking out at tlte top; all was so ruined and faded.
The Tudor farmhouse was almost blind; very small eye-
browed windows; old Stuart farmers must have peered out
over the flat land, very dirty, ill kempt, like people in
slums. But they had dignity; at least thick walls; fire-
places; and solidity; whereas now the house is lived in by
one old weedy pink fiiccd man, who flung himself in his
armchair — go where you like — go anywhere, he said,
loose jointed, somehow decayed, like the hop oasts; and
damp like the mildewed carpets, and sordid, like the beds
with the pots sticking out under them. The walls were
sticky; the furniture mid-Victorian; little light came
through. It was all dying, decaying; and he had been
there 50 years and it will drop to pieces, since there is not
enough beauty or strength to make anyone repair it.

Saturday^ August 12th

Shall 1 now continue this soliloquy, or shall I imagine
an audience, which will make me describe? This sentence
is due to the book on fiction which I am now writing —
once more, O once more. It is a hand to mouth book. I
scribble down whatever I can think of about Romance,
Dickens etc. n^ust hastily gorge on Jane Austen tonight
and dish up something tomorrow. All this criticism how-
ever may well be dislodged by the desire to write a story.
The Moths ^ hovers somewhere at the back of my brain.
But Clive yesterday at Charleston said that there were no
class distinctions. Wc had tea from bright blue cups under
the pink light of the giant hollyhock. We were all a little

* Become The Weots.

NINETEEN TWENTY-EIGHT 13,

drugged with tlic countr>’; a little bucolic I thought. It
was lovely enough — made me envious ofits countr>' peace;
the trees all standing securely — why did my eye catch the
trees? The look of things has a great power over me. Even
now, I have to watch the rooks beating up against tlic
wind, which is high, and still I say to myself instinctively
“What’s the phrase for that?” and try to make more and
more vivid the roughness of the air current and the tremor
of the rook’s wing slicing as if the air were full of ridges
and ripples and roughnesses. They rise and sink, up and
do\vn, as if the exercise rubbed and braced them like
swimmers in rough water. But what a little I can get down
into my pen of what is so vivid to my eyes, and not only to
my eyes; also to some neiwous fibre, or fanlike membrane
in my species.

Friday, August 31st

This is the last day of August and like almost all of them
of extraordinary beauty. Each day is fine enough and hot
enough for sitting out; but also full of wandering clouds;
and that fading and rising of the light wliich so enraptures
me in the downs; wliich I am always comparing to the
light beneath an alabaster bowl. The corn is now stood
about in rows of tlirce four or five solid shaped yellow
cakes— rich, it seems, with eggs and spice; good to eat.
Sometimes I see the cattle galloping “like mad” as
Dostoievsky would say, in the brooks. The clouds — if I
co^d describe them I would; one yesterday had flowing
hair on it, like the very fine white hair of an old man. At
this moment they are white in a leaden sky; but the sun
behind the house, is making the grass green. I walked to
the racecourse today and saw a weasel.

Monday, September loth

... I was amused to find that when Rebecca West says
“men arc snobs” she gets an instant rise out of Desmond:
so I retorted on him with the condescending phrase used
about women novelists’ “limitations” in I^e and Letters.

132 A WRITER’S DIARY

But there was no acrimony in this. We talked with
fertility; never working a scam dry. Do you suppose then
that we are now coming like the homing rooks back to
the lops of our trees? and that all this cawing is the begin-
ning of settling in for the night? I seem to notice in
several of my friends some endearing and afTecting cordi-
ality; and a pleasure in intimacy; as if the sun were sink-
ing. Often that image comes to me with some sense of my
physical state being colder now, the sun just ofif one; the
old disc of one’s being growing cooler — but it is only just
beginning; and one will turn cold and silver like the moon.
This lias been a very animated summer; a summer lived
almost too much in public. Often down here I have ‘
entered into a sanctuary; a nunnery; had a religious re-
treat; of great agony once; and always some terror; so
afraid one is of loneliness; of seeing to the bottom of the
vessel. That is one of the experiences I have had here in
some Augusts; and got then to a consciousness of what I
call “reality”: a thing I see before me: something abstract;
but residing in the downs or sky; beside which nothing
matters; in which I shall rest and continue to exist.
Reality I call it. And I fancy sometimes this is the most
necessary thing to me: that which I seek. But who knows
—once one takes a pen and writes? How diihcult not to
go making “reality” this and that, whereas it is one thing.
Now perhaps this is my gift: this perhaps is what dis-
tinguishes me from other people: I think it may be rare
to have so acute a sense of something like that — but again,
who knows? I would like to express it too.

Saiurdayy September 22nd

This has been the finest, and not only finest, but
loveliest, summer in the world. Still, though it blows, how
clear and bright it is; and the clouds arc opalescent; the
long barns on my horizon mouse-coloured; the stacks pale
gold. Owning the field has given a different orient to my
feelings about Rodmeli. I begin to dig myself in and take
part in it. And I shall build another storey to the house if
I make money. But the news of Orlando is black. We may

NINETEEN TWENTY-EIGHT 133

sell a third that we sold of the Lighthouse before publica-
tion — not a shop will buy save in sixes and twelves. They
say this is inevitable. No one wants biography. But it is
a novel, says Miss Ritchie.^

But it is called biography on the title page, they say.
It will have to go to the Biography shelf I doubt therefore
that we shall do more than cover expenses — a high price
to pay for the fun of calling it a biography. And I was so
sure it was going to be the one popular book! Also it
should be 10/6 or 12/6, not 9/-. Lord, lord! Thus I must
write some articles this winter, if we arc to have nest eggs
at the Bank. Down here I have flung myself tooth and nail
on my fiction book, and should have finished the first
draft but for Dorothy Osborne whom I’m dashing ofTi It
will need entire rc-%vriting but the grind is done — the
rushing through book after book and now what shall I
read? These novels have hung about me so long. Mercy
it is to be quit of them; and shall I read English poetry,
French memoirs — shall I read now for a book to be called
“The Lives of the Obscure”? And when, I wonder, shall
I begin The Moths? Not until I am pressed into it by those
insects themselves. Nor have I any notion what it is to be
like — a completely new attempt I think. So I always think.

Saturday y October 2‘jth

A scandal, a scandal, to let so much time slip and I
leaning on the Bridge watching it go. Only leaning has
not been my pose; running up and do^vn, irritably,
excitedly, restlessly. And the stream viciously eddying.
Why do I write these metaphors? Because I have written
nothing for an age. Orlando has been published. I went to
Bur^ndy with Vita. It flashed by. How disconnected
this is! My ambition is from this very moment, 8 minutes
to 6, on Saturday evening, to attain complete concentra-
tion again. When I have written here, I am going to open
Fanny Burney’s diaries and work solidly at that article
which poor Miss McKay cables about. I am going to read,
to think. I gave up reading and thinking on 26th

‘ Miss Ritchie was the traveller.

,34 A WRITER’S DIARY

September when I went to France. I came back and we
plunged into London and publishing. I am a little sick of
Orlando. I think I am a little indifTcrent now what anyone
thinks. Joy’s life in the doing— I murder, as usual, a
quotation; I mean it’s the writing, not the being read, that
excites me. And as 1 can’t write while I’m being read, I
am always a little hollow hearted; whipped up; but not
so liappy as in solitude. The reception, as they say, sur-
passed expectation. Sales beyond our record for the first
week. I was floating rather lazily on praise, when Squire
barked in the Observer^ but even as I sat reading him on
the Backs last Sunday in the showering red leaves and
their illumination, 1 felt the rock of self esteem untouched
in me. “This doesn’t really hurt,’’ I said to myself; even
now; and sure enough, before evening I was calm,
untouched. And now there’s Hugh in the Morning Post to
spread the butter again, and Rebecca West — such a
trumpet call of praise — that’s her way — that I feel a little
sheepish and silly. And now no more of that I hope.

Thank God, my long toil at the women’s lecture is this
moment ended. I am back from speaking at Girton, in
floods of rain. Starved but valiant young women-~that’s
my impression. Intelligent, eager, poor; and destined to
become schoolmistresses in shoals. I blandly told them to
drink wine and have a room of their own. Why should all
the splendour, all the luxury of life be lavished on the
Julians and the Francises, and none on the Pharp and
the Thomases? There’s Julian not much relishing it, per-
haps. I fancy sometimes the world changes. I think I see
reason spreading. But I should have liked a closer and
thicker knowledge of life. I should have liked to deal with
real things sometimes. I get such a sense of tingling and
vitality from an evening’s talk like that; one’s an^larities
and obscurities arc smoothed and lit. How little one
counts, I think: how little anyone counts; how fast and
furious and masterly life is; and how all these thousands
are swimming for dear life. 1 felt elderly and mature.
And nobody respected me. They were very eager,
egotistical, or rather not much impressed by age and
repute. Very little reverence or that sort of thing about.

NINETEEN TWENTY-EIGHT 135

The corridors of Girton arc like vaults in some horrid
high church cathedral — on and on they go, cold and
shiny, with a light burning. High Gothic rooms: acres of
bright brown wood; here and there a photograph.

Wednesday y November yth

And this shall be written for my own pleasure. But
that phrase inhibits me; for if one writes only for one’s
own pleasure, I don’t know what it is that happens. I sup-
pose the convention of writing is destroyed: therefore one
does not write at all. I am rather headachy and dimly
obscured with sleeping draught. This is the aftermath
(what does that mean? — Trench, whom I open idly
apparently says nothing) of Orlando. Yes, yes: since I
wrote here I have become two inches and a half higher
in the public view. I think I may say that I am now among
the well known writers. I had tea with Lady Cunard—
rmght have lunched or dined any day. I found her in a
little cap telephoning. It was not her atmosphere— this of
solitary talk. She is too shrewd to expand and needs
society to m^e her rash and random which is her point.
Ridiculous little pairokcet faced woman; but not quite
sufiiciently ridiculous. I kept wishing for superlatives;
could not get the illusion to flap its wings. Flunkeys, yes:
but a little drab and friendly. Marble floor, yes: but no
glamour; no tunc strumming, for me at least. And the
two of us sitting there had almost to be conventional and
flat — reminds me of Sir Thomas Browne — the greatest
book of our times— said a little flatly by a woman of
business, to me who don’t believe in that kind of thing
unless launched with champagne and garlands. Then in
came Lord Donegal], a glib Irish youth, dark, sallow,
slick, on the Press. “Don’t they treat you like a dog?’’

I said. No, not at all,” he replied, astonished that a
marquis could be treated like a dog by anyone. And then
we went up and up to sec pictures on stairs, in ballrooms
and finally to Lady C.’s bedroom, hung entirely with
fl(wcr pieces. The bed has its triangular canopy of rose
red silk; the windows, looking on the Square, are hung

,36 A WRITER'S DIARY

with green brocade. Her poudreuse — like mine only
painted and gilt— stood open with gold brushes, looking
glasses, and there on her gold slippers were neatly laid
gold stockings. All this paraphernalia for one stringy old
hop o’ my tliumb. She set the two great musical boxes
playing and I said did she lie in bed and listen to them?
But no. She has nothing fantastic in that way about her.
Money is important. She told me rather sordid stories of
Lady Sackville never Nnsiting her without fobbing some-
thing off on her — now a bust, worth ^(^ 5 , for which she
paici /^loo: now a brass knocker. “And then her talk— -*1
didn’t care for it . . .” Somehow I saw into these sordid
commonplace talks and could not sprinkle the air with
gold dust easily. But no doubt she has her acuity, her
sharp peek at life; only how adorable, I thought, as I tip-
toed home in my tight shoes, in the fog, in the chill, could
one open one of these doors that I still open so venturously,
and find a live interesting real person, a Ncssa, a Dunean,
a Roger. Someone new, whose mind would begin vibrat-
ing. Coarse and usual and dull these Cunards and Cole-
faxes are — for all their astonishing competence in the
commerce of life.

And I cannot think what to write next. I mean the
situation is, this Orlando is of course a very quick brilliant
book. Yes, but I did not try to explore. And must I always
explore? Yes 1 think so still. Because my reaction is not
the usual. Nor can I even after all these years run it off
lightly. Orlando taught me how to write a direct sentence;
taught me continuity and narrative and how to keep the
realities at bay. But I purposely avoided of course any
other diflicuUy. I never got down to my depths and made
shapes square up, as I did in the Lighthouse.

Well but Orlando was the outcome of a perfectly definite,
indeed overmastering, impulse. I want fun.^ I want
fantasy. I want (and this was serious) to give tilings their
caricature value. And still this mood hangs about me. I
want to write a history, say of Newnham or the women’s
movement, in the same vein. The vein is deep in me — at
least sparkling, urgent. But is it not stimulated by applause?
overstimulated? My notion is that there are offices to be

NINETEEN TWENT Y-EI GHT 137

discharged by talent for the relief of genius: meaning that
one has the play side; the gift when it is mere gift, un-
applied gift; and the gift when it is serious, going to
business. And one relieves the other.

Yes, but The Moths? That was to be an abstract mystical
eyeless book: a playpoem. And there may be affectation
in being too mystical, too abstract; saying Ncssa and
Roger and Duncan and Ethel Sands admire that; it is
the uncompromising side of me; therefore I had better
win their approval.

Again, one reviewer says that I have come to a crisis
in the matter of style: it is now so fluent and fluid that it
runs through tlie mind like water.

That disease began in the Lighthouse. The first part
came fluid — how I wrote and wrote!

Shall I now check and consolidate, more in the Dalloway
and Jacob's Room style?

I rather think the upshot will be books that relieve
other books: a variety of styles and subjects: for after all,
that is my temperament, 1 think, to be very little per-
suaded of the truth of anything — what I say, what people
say — always to follow, blindly, instinctively with a sense
of leaping over a precipice— the call of— the call of— now,
if I write The Moths I must come to terms witli these
mystical feelings.

X destroyed our Saturday walk: he is now mouldy and
to me depressing. He is perfectly reasonable and charm-
ing. Nothing surprises, nothing shocks him. He has been
through it all, one feels. He has come out rolled, smoothed,
rather sodden, rather creased and jumbled, like a man
who has sat up all night in a third class railway carriage.
His fingers are stained yellow with cigarettes. One tooth
in the lower jaw is missing. His hair is dank. His eyes more
than ever dubious. He has a hole in his blue sock. Yet he
is resolute and determined— that’s what I find so depres-
sing. He seems to be sure that it is his view that is tlie
right one: ours vagaries, deviations. And if his view is the
nght one, God knows there is nothing to live for: not a
^easy biscuit. And the egotism of men surprises and
shocks me even now. Is there a woman of my acquaintance

,38 A WRITER’S DIARY

who could bit in my armchair from 3 lo 6.30 \vilhout the
semblance of a suspicion that I may be busy, or tired, or
bored; and so sitting could talk, grumbling and grudging,
of her difficulties, worries; then cat chocolates, then read
a book, and go at last, apparently self-complacent and
wrapped in a kind of blubber of misty self-salutation?
Not the girls at Newnham or Girton. They arc far too
spry; far too disciplined. None of that self confidence is
their lot.

Wednesday^ November 28th

Father’s birtliday. He would have been 96, 96, yes, today;
and could have been 96, like other people one has ^
known: but mercifully was not. His life would have
entirely ended mine. What would have happened?

No writing, no books; — inconceivable.

I used to think of him and mother daily; but writing
the Lighthouse laid them in my mind. And now he comes
back sometimes, but differently. (1 believe this to be
true — that I was obsessed by them both, unhealthily;
and writing of them was a necessary act.) He comes back
now more as a contemporary. I must read him some day.

I wonder if I can feel again, I hear his voice, I know this
by heart?

So the days pass and I ask myself sometimes whether
one is not hypnotised, as a child by a silver globe, by life;
and whether this is living. It’s very quick, bright, exciting.
But superficial perhaps. I should like to take the globe in
my hands and feel it quietly, round, smooth, heavy, and
so hold it, day after day. I will read Proust I think. I will
go backwards and forwards.

As for my next book, I am going to hold myself from
writing till I have it impending in me: grown heavy in my
mind like a ripe pear; pendant, gravid, asking to be cut
or it will fall. The Moths still haunts me, coming, as they
always do, unbidden, between tea and dinner, while
L. plays tlie gramophone. I shape a page or two; and
make myself stop. Indeed I am up against some diffi-
culties. Fame to begin with. Orlando has done very well.

NINETEEN TWENTY-EIGHT 139

Now I could go on WTiting like that — the tug and suck
are at me to do it. People say this was so spontaneous, so
natural. And I would like to keep those qualities if I
could without losing the otliers. But those qualities were
largely the result of ignoring the others. They came of
WTiting exteriorly; and if I dig, must I not lose them?
And what is my own position towards the inner and the
outer? I think a kind of ease and dash are good; — yes: I
think even externality is good; some combination of them
ought to be possible. The idea has come to me that what
I want now to do is to saturate every atom. I mean to
eliminate all waste, deadness, superfluity; to give the
moment whole; whatever it includes. Say that the
moment is a combination of thought; sensation; the voice
of the sea. Waste, deadness, come from the inclusion of
things that don’t belong to the moment; this appalling
narrative business of the realist: getting on from luncli to
dinner: it is false, unreal, merely conventional. Why
admit anything to literature that is not poetry — by which
I mean saturated? Is that not my grudge against novelists?
that they select nothing? The poets succeeding by sim-
plifying: practically everything is left out. I want to put
practically everything in: yet to saturate. That is what I
w'ant to do in The Moths. It must include nonsense, fact,
sordidity: but made transparent. I think I must read
Ibsen and Shakespeare and Racine. And I will write
something about them; for that is the best spur, my mind
being what it is; then I read with fury and exactness;
otherwise I skip and skip; I am a lazy reader. But no: I
am surprised and a little disquieted by the remorseless
severity of my mind: that it never stops reading and
writing; makes me write on Geraldine Jewsbury, on
Hardy, on Women — is too professional, too little any
longer a dreamy amateur.

Tuesday^ December i8th

L. has just been in to consult about a 3rd edition of
Orlando. This has been ordered; we have sold over 6,000
copies; and sales are still amazingly brisk — 150 today for

140 A WRITER’S DIARY

instance; most days between 50 and 60; always to my sur-
prise. ^Vill they stop or go on? Anyhow my room is secure.
For the first time since I married, 1912-1928 — 16 years,
I have been spending money. The spending muscle docs
not work naturally yet. I feel guilty; put off buying, when
I know that I should buy; and yet have an agreeable
luxurious sense of coins in my pocket beyond my weekly
13/- which was always running out, or being encroached
upon.

1929

Friday^ January 4th

Now is life very solid or very shifting? I am haunted by
the two contradictions. This has gone on for cvcrj will
last for ever; goes down to the bottom of the world— this
moment I stand on. Also it is transitory, flying, diaphanous,
I shall pass like a cloud on the waves. Perhaps it may be
that though we Cjhange, one flying after another, so quick,
so quick, yet we are somehow successive and continuous
we human beings, and show the light through. But what is
the light? I am impressed by the transitoriness of human
life to such an extent that I am often saying a farewell

after dining with Roger for instance; or reckoning how
many more times I shall see Nessa.

Thursday^ March 28th

It is a disgrace indeed; no diary has been left so late in
the year. The truth was that we went to Berlin on i6th
January, and then I was in bed for three weeks afterwards
and then could not write, perhaps for another three, and
have spent my energy since in one of my excited outbursts
of composition— writing what I made up in bed, a final
version of Worrun and Fiction.

And as usual I am bored by narrative. I want only to
say how I met Nessa in Tottenham Court Road this after-
noon, both of us sunk fathoms deep in that wash of
reflection in which we both swim about. She will be gone
on Wednesday for 4 months. It is queer how instead of
drawing apart, life draws us together. But I was thinking
a thousand things as I carried my teapot, gramophone
records and stockings under my arm. It is one of those
days that I called “potent” when we lived in Richmond.

Perhaps I ought not to go on repeating what I have
^ways said about the spring. One ought perhaps to be
forever finding new things to say, since life draws on.

* 4 »

,42 A WRITER'S DIARY

One ought to invent a fine narrative style. Certainly there
arc many new ideas always forming in my head. For one,
that I am going to enter a nunnery these next months;
and let myself down into my mind; Bloomsbury being
done with. I am going to face certain things. It is going to
be a time of adventure and attack, rather lonely and pain-
ful I think. But solitude will be good for a new book. Of
coui-sc, I shall make friends. I shall be external outwardly.

I shall buy some good clothes and go out into new houses.
.\ll the time I shall attack this angular shape in my mind.

I think The Moths (if that is what I shall call it) will be
very sharply cornered. I am not satisfied though with the
frame. There is this sudden fertility which may be mere
fluency. In old days books were so many sentences
absolutely struck with an a.xc out of crystal: and now my
mind is so impatient, so quick, in some ways so desperate.

Sunday^ May 12th

Here, having just finished what I call the final revision
of Women and Fiction ^ so that L. can read it after tea, I
stop; surfeited. And the pump, which I was so sanguine
a.s to think ceased, begins again. About Women and Fiction
I am not sure — a brilliant essay? — I daresay: it has much
work in it, many opinions boiled down into a kind of jelly,
which I have stained red as far as I can. But I am eager
to be off— to write without any boundary coming slick
in one’s eyes: here my public has been too close; facts;
getting them malleable, easily yielding to each other.

Tuesday^ May 28th

Now about this book. The Moths. How am I to begin it?
And what is it to be? I feel no great impulse; no fever;
only a great pressure of difficulty. Why write it then? Why
write at all? Every morning I write a little sketch, to
amuse myself. I am not saying, I might say, that these
sketches have any relevance. I am not trying to tell a story.
Yet perhaps it might be done in that way. A mind think-

‘ A Room of One's Oum.

NINETEEN TWENTY-NINE 143

ing. They might be islands of light — islands in the stream
that I am trying to convey; life itself going on. The current
of the moths flying strongly this way. A lamp and a flower
pot in the centre. The flower can always be changing. But
there must be more unity between each scene than I can
find at present. Autobiography it might be called. How
am I to make one lap, or act, between the coming of the
moths, more intense than another; if there arc only
scenes? One must get the sense that this is the beginning;
tlm the middle; that the climax — when she opens the
window and the moth comes in. I shall have the two
different currents — the moths flying along; the flower
upright in the centre; a perpetual crumbling and renew-
ing of the plant. In its leaves she might see things happen.
But who is she? I am very anxious that she should have no
name. I don’t want a Lavinia or a Penelope: I want
“she”. But that becomes arty, Liberty greenery yallcry
somehow: symbolic in loose robes. Of course I can make
her think backwards and fonvards; I can tell stories. But
that’s not it. Also I shall do away with exact place and
time. Anything may be out of the window — a ship — a
desert — London.

Sunday f June 2^rd

It was very hot that day, driving to Worthing to sec
Leonard’s mother, my throat hurt me. Next morning I
had a headache — so wc stayed on at Rodmell till today.
At Rodmell I read through The Common Reader^ and this
is very important — I must learn to write more succinctly.
Especially in the general idea essays like the last, “How it
strikes a Contemporary,” I am horrified by my own
looseness. This is partly that I don’t think things out first;
partly that I stretch my style to take in crumbs of meaning.
But the result is a wobble and diffusity and breathlessness
which I detest. One must correct A Room of One's Own
very carefully before printing. And so I pitched into my
great lake of melancholy. Lord how deep it is! What a
bom melancholic I am! The only way I keep afloat is by
working. A note for the summer — I must take more work

144 A WRITER’S DIARY

than I can possibly get done. — No, I don’t know what it
comes from. Directly I stop working I feel that I am sink-
ing down, down. And as usual I feel that if I sink further
I shall reach the truth. That is the only mitigation; a kind
of nobility. Solemnity. I shall make myself face the fact
that there is nothing — nothing for any of us. ^Vo^k,
reading, writing arc all disguises; and relations with
people. Yes, even having children would be useless.

However, I now begin to sec The Moths rather too
clearly, or at least strenuously, for my comfort. I think
it will begin like this: dawn; the shells on a beach; I don’t
know — voices of cock and nightingale; and then all the
children at a long table — lessons. The beginning. Well,
all sorts of characters arc to be there. Then the person who
is at the table can call out anyone of them at any moment;
and build up by that person the mood, tell a story; for
instance about dogs or nurses; or some adventure of a
child’s kind; all to be very Arabian Nights; and so on:
this shall be childhood; but it must not be my childhood;
and boats on the pond; the sense of children; unreality;
things oddly proportioned. Then another person or figure
must be selected. The unreal world must be round all
this — the phantom waves. The Moth must come in; the
beautiful single moth. Could one not get the waves to be
heard all through? Or the farmyard noises? Some odd
irrelevant noises. She might have a book— one book to
read in — another to write in — old letters. Early morning
liglit — but this need not be insisted on; because there must
be great freedom from “reality”. Yet everything must
have relevance.

Well all this is of course the “real” life; and nothing-
ness only comes in the absence of this. I have proved this
quite certainly in the past half hour. Everything becomes
green and vivified in me when I begin to think The
Moths. Also, I think, one is much better able to enter into
others*

Monday^ August igth

I suppose dinner interrupted. And I opened this book

NINETEEN TWENTY-NINE 145

in another train of mind — to record the blessed fact that
for good or bad I have just set the last correction to Women
and Fiction^ or A Room of One's Own. I shall never read it
again I suppose. Good or bad? Has an uneasy life in it
I think: you feel the creature arching its back and gallop-
ing on, ^ough as usual much is watery and flimsy and
pitched in too high a voice.

Mondayy September loth

Leonard is having a picnic at Charleston and I am here
— ‘‘tired’*. But why am I tired? Well I am never alone.
This is the beginning of my complaint. I am not physically
tired so much as psychologically. I have strained and
wrung at journalism and proof correction; and under-
neath has been forming my Moth book. Yes, but it forms
very slowly; and what I want is not to write it, but to think
it for two or three weeks say — to get into the same current
of thought and let that submerge everything. Writing
perhaps a few phrases here at my window in the morning.
(And they’ve gone to some lovely place — Hurstmonceux
perhaps, in this strange misty evening; — and yet when the
time came to go, all I wanted was to walk off into the hills
by myself. I ani now feeling a little lonely and deserted
and defrauded, inevitably.) And every time I get into my
current of thought I am jerked out of it. We have the
Keynes; then Vita came; then Angelica and Eve; then
we went to Worthing, then my head begins throbbing —
so here I am, not writing — that does not matter, but not
thinking, feeling or seeing — and seizing an afternoon
alone as a treasure — Leonard appeared at the glass door
at this moment; and they didn’t go to Hurstmonceux or
anywhere; and Sprott was there and a miner, so I missed
nothing— one’s first egotistical pleasure.

Really these premonitions of a book — states of soul in
creating— are very queer and little apprehended. . .

^ And then I am 47: yes; and my infu'mities will of course
increase. To begin with my eyes. Last year, I think, I
could r^d without spectacles; would pick up a paper and
read it in a tube; gradually I found I needed spectacles in

146 A WRITER'S DIARY

bed; and now I can’t read a line (unless held at a very odd
angle) without them. My new spectacles are much
stronger than the old and when I take them off I am
blinded for a moment. ^Vhat other infirmities? I can hear,

I think, perfectly: I think 1 could walk as well as ever. But
tlien will there not be the change of life? And may that
not be a difficult and even dangerous time? Obviously
one can get over it by facing it with common sense — that
it is a natural process; that one can lie out here and read;
that one’s faculties will be the same afterwards; that one
has nothing to worry about in one sense — I’ve written
some interesting books, can make money, can afford a
holiday — Oh no; one has nothing to bofficr about; and
these curious intervals in life — I’ve had many — arc the
most fruitful artistically — one becomes fertilised — think
of my madness at Hogarth — and all the little illnesses —
that before I wrote the Lighthouse for instance. Six weeks
in bed now would make a masterpiece of Moths. But that
won’t be the name. Moths, I suddenly remember, don’t
fly by day. And there can’t be a lighted candle. Altogether,
the shape of the book wants considering — and with time
I could do it. Here I broke off.

Wednesdaj/y September 25th

Yesterday morning I made another start on The MothSy
but that won’t be its title; and several problems cry out
at once to be solved. Who thinks it? And am I outside the
thinker? One wants some device which is not a trick.

Friday^ October nth

And I snatch at the idea of writing here in order not to
write Waves or Moths or whatever it is to be called. One
thinks one has learnt to write quickly; and one hasn’t. And
what is odd, I’m not writing with gusto or pleasure:
because of the concentration. I am not reeling it off; but
sticking it down. Also, never, in my life, did I attack such
a vague yet elaborate design; whenever I make a mark 1
have to think of its relation to a dozen others. And

NINETEEN TWENTY-NINE ,47

though I could go on ahead easily enough, I am always
stopping to consider the whole effect. In particular is there
some radical fault in my scheme? I am not quite satisfied
with this method of picking out things in the room and
being reminded by them of other things. Yet I can’t at
the moment divine anything which keeps so close to the
original design and admits of movement. Hence, perhaps,
these October days are to me a little strained and sur-
rounded with silence. AVhat I mean by this last word I
don’t quite know, since I have never stopped “seeing”
people— Nessa and Roger, the Jeffers, Charles Buxton,
and should have seen Lord David and am to see the
Eliots — oh and there was Vita too. No, it’s not physical
silence; it’s some inner loneliness — interesting to analyse
if one could. To give an example — I was walking up
Bedford Place is it — the straight street with all the board-
ing houses this afternoon — and I said to myself spon-
taneously, something like this. How I suffer. And no one
knows how I suffer, walking up this street, engaged with
my anguish, as I was after Thoby^ died— alone; fighting
something alone. But then I had the devil to fight, and

now nothing. And when I come indoors it is all so silent

I am not carrying a great rush of wheels in my head — yet
I am writing — oh and we are very successful — and there
is — what I most love — change ahead. Yes, that last
evening at Rodmell when Leonard came down against
his will to fetch me, the Keynes came over. And Maynard
is giving up the Nation^ and so is Hubert * and so no doubt
shall we. And it is autumn; and the lights are going up;
and Nessa is in Fitzroy Street — in a great misty room with

flaring gas and unsorted plates and glasses on the floor

and the Pr^ is booming — and this celebrity business is

quite chronic — and I am richer than I have ever been

and bought a pair of earrings today — and for all this,
there is vacancy and silence somewhere in the machine.
On the whole, I do not much mind; because what I like
is to flash and dash from side to side, goaded on by what I
call reality. If I never felt these extraordinarily pervasive

* . 1 . T. Stephen, brother of V. W. He died in 1906.

• Hubert Henderson, editor.

A WRITER’S DIARY

148

strains — of unrest or rest or happiness or discomfort — I
should float down into acquiescence. Here is something to
fight; and when I wake early I say to myself Fight, figltt.
If I could catch the feeling, I would; the feeling of the
singing of the real world, as one is driven by loneliness and
silence from the habitable world; the sense that comes to
me of being bound on an adventure; of being strangely
free now, with money and so on, to do anything. I go to
take theatre tickets {The Matriarch) and see a list of cheap
excursions hanging there, and at once think that I will go
to Stratford on Avon Mop Fair tomorrow — why not?— or
to Ireland or to Edinburgh for a weekend. I daresay I
shan’t. But anything is possible. And this curious steed,
life, is genuine. Docs any of this convey what I want to
say? But I have not really laid hands on the emptiness
after all. It’s odd, now I come to think of it — I miss
Clive.

Wednesday y October 23rd

As it is true — I write only for an hour, then rush back
feeling I cannot keep my brain on that spin any more —
then typewrite, and am done by 12 . 1 will here sum up my
impressions before publishing A Room of One's Own. It is

a little ominous that Morgan won’t
He wrote yester- review it. It makes me suspect that there

day, 3 Dee. and is a slirill feminine tone in it which my

said he very much intimate friends will dislike. I forecast,
it. then, that I shall get no criticism, except

of the evasive jocular kind, from Lytton,
Roger and Morgan; that the press will be kind and talk
of its charm and sprightliness; also I shall be attacked for
a feminist and hinted at for a Sapphist; Sybil will ask me
to luncheon; I shall get a good many letters from young
women. I am afraid it will not be taken seriously. Mrs.
Woolf is so accomplished a writer that all she says makes
easy reading . . . this very feminine logic ... a book to be
put in the hands of girls. 1 doubt that I mind very much.
The Moths; but I think it is to be waves, is trudging
along; and I have that to refer to, if I am damped by the

NINETEEN TWENTY-NINE 149

other. It is a trifle, I shall say; so it is; but I wrote it with
ardour and conviction.

We dined last night with the Webbs and I had Eddy >
and Dotty to tea. As for these mature dinner parties one
has some friendly easy talk with one man — Hugh
Nlacmillan “ — about the Buchans and his own career;
the Webbs are friendly but can’t be influenced about
Kenya; wc sit in two lodging house rooms (the dining
room had a brass bedstead behind a screen) eat hunks of
red beef; and arc oflTcred wliisky. It is the same enlightened,
impersonal, perfectly aware of itself atmosphere. “My
little boy shall have his toys” — but don’t let that go any
further that s what my wile says about my being in the
Cabinet. No they have no illusions. And I compared
them with L. and myself, and felt, (I daresay for tliis
reason) the pathos, the symbolical quality of the childless
couple; standing for something, united.

Saturday y November 2nd

Oh but I have done quite well so far with Room of One's
Own\ and it sells, I think; and I get unexpected letters.
But I am more concerned with my fVaoes. I’ve just typed
out my morning’s work; and can’t feel altogether sure
There is something there (as I felt about Mrs. Dalloway) but
I can’t get at it, squarely; nothing like the speed and
certainty of the Lighthouse’. Orlando mere child’s play. Is
there some falsity of method, somewhere? Something
tneky? — so that the interesting things aren’t firmly based?
l am in an odd state; feel a cleavage; here’s my interesting
thing; and there s no quite solid table on which to put it.
It might come in a flash, on rc-rcading — some solvent. I
am convinced that I am right to seek for a station whence
I can set my people against time and the sea — but Lord,
the difficulty of digging oneself in there, >vith conviction.
Yesterday I had conviction; it has gone today.

‘ E. Sackville West,

• Afterwards Lord Macmillan.

150

A WRITER’S DIARY

Saturday y November ^otk

I fill in tills page, nefariously; at the end of a morning’s
ivork. I have begun the second part of IVaves — I don’t
know. I don’t know. I feel that I am only accumulating
notes for a book — whether I shall ever face the labour of
ivriting it, God knows. From some higher station I may be
able to pull it together — at Rodmell, in my new room.
Reading the Lighthouse does not make it easier to write . . .

Sunday^ December 8th

I read and read and finished I daresay 3 foot thick of
MS. read carefully too; much of it on the border, and so
needing thought. Now, with this load despatched, I am
free to begin reading Elizabethans — the little unknown
writers, whom I, so ignorant am I, have never heard of,
Puttenham, \Vcbb, Harvey. This thought fills me with joy
— no overstatement. To begin reading with a pen in my
hand, discovering, pouncing, thinking of phrases, when
the ground is new, remains one of my great excitements.
Oh but L. will sort apples and the little noise upsets me;

I can’t think what I was going to say.

So I stopped writing, by which no great harm was done,
and made out a list of Elizabethan poets. And I have,
with great happiness, refused to write Rhoda Broughton,
Ouida for dc la Mare. That vein, popular as it is, witness
Jane and Geraldine, is soon worked out in me. I want to
write criticism. Yes, and one might make out an obscure
figure or two. It was the Elizabethan prose writers I loved
first and most wildly, stirred by Hakluyt, which father
lugged home for me — I tliink of it with some sentiment
— father tramping over the Library with his little girl
sitting at H.P.G.' in mind. He must have been 65; I 15 or
16 then; and why I don’t know but I became enraptured,
though not exactly interested, but the sight of the large
yellow page entranced me. I used to read it and dream of
those obscure adventurers and no doubt practised their

* Hyde Park Gate, where the Stephen family lived when V. W.
was a child.

NINETEEN TWENTY-NINE 151

Style in my copybook. I was then writing a long pic-
lur^que essay upon the Christian religion, I think; called
Religio Laid, I believe, proving that man has need of a
God; but the God was described in process of change;
and I also wrote a history of Women; and a history of my
own family — all very long^N’inded and Elizabethan in style.

RODMELL — Boxing Day

I find it almost incredibly soothing — a fortnight alone
— almost impossible to let oneself have it. Relentlessly we
have crushed visitors. We will be alone this once, we say;
and really, it seems possible. Then Annie is to me ver)'
sympathetic. My bread bakes well. All is rather rapt,
simple, quick, effective— except for my blundering on at
The IVaves. I write two pages of arrant nonsense, after
straining; I witc variations of every sentence; compro-
mises; bad shots; possibilities; till my writing book is like
a lunatic’s dream. Then I trust to some inspiration on
re-rea<fing; and pencil them into some sense. Still I am
not satisfied. I think there is something lacking. I sacrifice
nothing to seemliness. I press to my centre. I don’t care if
it all is scratched out. And there is something there. I
incline now to try violent shots — at London — at talk —
shouldering my way ruthlessly— and then, if nothing comes
of it — anyhow I have examined the possibilities. But I
wish I enjoyed it more. I don’t have it in my head all day
like the Lighthouse and Orlando.

1 930

Sunday, January 12th

Sunday it is. And I liavc just exclaimed: *‘And now I
can think of nothing else.” Thanks to my pertinacity and
industry, I can now hardly stop making up The Waves.
The sense of this came acutely about a week ago on begin-
ning to write the Phcfitoffi Pcrtyi now I feel that I can rush
on after 6 months’ hacking, and finish: but without the
least certainty how it’s to achieve any form. Much will
have to be discarded: what is essential is to write fast and
not break the mood— no holiday, no interval if possible,
till it is done. Then rest. Then re-write.

Sunday, January 26th

I am 48: we have been at Rodmcll— a wet, windy day
again; but on my birthday we walked among the downs,
like the folded wings of grey birds; and saw first one fox,
very long with his brush stretched; then a second; wliich
had been barking, for the sun was hot over us; it leapt
lightly over a fence and entered the fur^e — a very rare
sight. How many foxes are there in England? At night I
read Lord Chaplin’s life. I cannot yet write naturally in
my new room, because tlie table is not the right height
and I must stoop to warm my hands. Everything must be

absolutely what 1 am used to.

I forgot to say that when wc made up our 6 months
accounts, wc found I had made about last ycar^

the salary of a civil servant: a surprise
to me, who was content with £200 for
so many years. But I shall drop very
heavily I think. The Waves won’t sell
more than 2,000 copies. I am stuck f^t
in that book — I mean, glued to it, like
a fly on gummed paper. Sometimes I
am out of touch; but go on; then again feel that I have

152

It has sold about
6,500 today, Oct.
30th, 1931— after
3 weeks. But will
stop now, I suppose.

NINETEEN THIRTY 153

at last, by violent measures — like breaking through gorse
— set my hands on something central. Perhaps I can now
say something quite straight out; and at length; and need
not be always casting a line to make my book the right
shape. But how to pull it together, how to comport it —
press it into one — I do not know; nor can I guess the end —
it might be a gigantic conversation. The interludes are
very difficult, yet I think essential; so as to bridge and also
to give a background — the sea; insensitive nature — I don’t
know. But I tlunk, when I feel this sudden directness, that
it must be right: anyhow no other form of fiction suggests
itself except as a repetition at the moment.

Sunday, February i 6 th

To lie on the sofa for a week. I am sitting up today in
the usual state of unequal animation. Below normal, witli
spasmodic desire to Nvrite, then to doze. It is a fine cold day
and if my energy and sense of duty persist, I shall drive up
to Hampstead. But I doubt that I can write to any pur-
pose. A cloud swims in my head. One is too conscious of
the body and jolted out of the rut of life to get back to
fiction. Once or twice I have felt that odd whirr of wings
in the head, which comes when I am ill so often — last
year for example at this time I lay in bed constructing
A Room of One^s Own (which sold 10,000 two days ago). If
I could stay in bed another fortnight (but there is no
chance of that) I believe I should see the whole of The
IVaves. Or of course I might go off on something different.
As it is I half incline to insist upon a dash to Cassis; but
perhaps this needs more determination than I possess; and
we shall dwindle on here. Pinker is walking about the room
looldng for the bright patch — a sign of spring. I believe
these illnesses are in my case — how shall I express it?
— partly mystical. Something happens in my mind. It
refuses to go on restoring impressions. It shuts itself up.
It becomes chrysalis. I lie quite torpid, often with acute
physical pain — as last year; only discomfort this. Then
suddenly something springs. Two nights ago Vita was
here; and when she went I began to feel the quality of the

,54 A WRITER’S DIARY

cvcning~how it was spring coming: a silver light; mixing
with the early lamps; the cabs all rushing through the
streets; I had a tremendous sense of life beginning; mixed
with that emotion which is the essence of my feeling, but
escapes description (I keep on making up the Hamptori
Court scene in Tht II Lord how I wonder if I shall
pull this book off! It is a litter of fragments so far). Well,
as I was saying, between these long pauses, for I am swim-
ming in the head and write rather to stabilise myself than
to make a correct statement — 1 felt the spring beginning;
and Vita’s life so full and flush; and all the doors opening;
and this is I believe the moth shaking its wings in me. I
then begin to make up my stor>' whatever it is; ideas
rush in me; often though this is before I can control my
mind or pen. It is no use trying to write at this stage. And
I doubt if I can fill this white monster. I would like to he
down and sleep, but feel ashamed. Leonard brushed off
his influenza in one day and went about his business
feeling ill. Here am 1 still loafing, undressed, with Elly ^
coming tomorrow. But as I was saying, my mind works
in idleness. To do nothing is often my most profitable way.

I am reading Byron: Maurois: which sends nic to Childe
Haroldy makes me speculate. How odd a mixture: the
weakest sentimental Mrs. Hemans combined with trench-
ant bare vigour. How did they combine? And sometimes
the descriptions in C.H. arc “beautiful”; like a great poet.
There are the three elements in Byron:

1 . The romantic dark haired lady singing drawing
room melodies to the guitar.

"Tambourgi! Tambourgi! thy ’larum afar
Gives hope to the valiant and promise of war;”

“Oh! who is more brave than a dark Suliote,

In his snowy camese and his shaggy capote”

— something manufactured; a pose; silliness.^

2 . Then there is the vigorous rhetorical, like his prose,
and good as prose.

» EUy Rendel, V. W.’s doctor.

NINETEEN THIRTY

«55

“Hereditary Bondsmen! know yc not

Who would be free themselves must strike the blow?
By their right arms the conquest must be wrought?
^Vill Gaul or Muscovite redress yc? No!”

(All in Canto
II oiC.H.)

3. Then what rings to me truer, and is almost poetr>'.

“Dear Nature is the kindest mother still!

Though always changing, in her aspect mild;
From her bare bosom let me take my fill,

Her never-weaned, though not her favoured
child.

To me by day or night she ever smiled,

Though I have marked her when none other hath,

And sought her more and more and loved her best in
wrath.”

4. And then there is of course the pure satiric, as in the
description of a London Sunday; and

5. Finally (but this makes more than three) the
inevitable half assumed half genuine tragic note, which
comes as a refrain, about death and the loss of friends.

All thou could have of mine, stern Death! thou hast;
The parent, Friend, and now the more than Friend:

Ne’er yet for me thine arrows flew so fast.

And grief with grief continuing still to blend,

Hath snatched the little joy that life had yet to lend.

These I think make him up; and make much that is
spurious, vapid, yet very changeable, and then rich and
with greater range than the other poets, could he have got
the whole into order. A novelist, he might have been. It is
odd however to read in his letters his prose and apparently
genuine feeling about Athens: and to compare it with the
convention he adopted in verse. (There is some sneer about
the Acropolis.) But then the sneer may have been a pose
too. The truth may be that if you are charged at such high
voltage you can’t fit any of the ordinary human feelings;
must pose; must rhapsodise; don’t fit in. He wrote in the
Fun ^bum that his age was 100. And this is true, measur-
ing life by feeling.

,56 A WRITER’S DIARY

Monday., February ijth

And this temperature is up: but it has now gone down;
and now

Thursday, February 20th

I must canter my wits if I can. Perhaps some character
sketches.

Monday, March lyth

The test of a book (to a writer) is if it makes a space in
which, quite naturally, you can say what you waiit to say.
As this morning I could say what Rhoda said. This proves
that the book iuelf is alive: because it has not crushed the
thing I wanted to say, but allowed me to slip it in, without
any compression or alteration.

Friday, March 28th

Yes, but this book is a ve^ queer business. 1 had a day
of intoxication when I said “Children arc nothing to
this”: when I sat surveying the whole book complete and
quarrelled with L. (about £thel Smyth) and walked it off,
felt the pressure of the form— the splendour, the ^catne^
— as, perhaps I have never felt them. But I shan’t race it
off in intoxication. I keep pegging away; and find it the
most complex and difficult of all my books. How to end,
save by a tremendous discussion, in which every life shall
have its voice— a mosaic I do not know. The difficulty

is that it is all at high pressure. I have not yet mastered
the speaking voice. Yet I tliink something is there; and I
propose to go on pegging it down, arduously, and then
re-write, reading much of it aloud, like poetry. It will
bear expansion. It is compressed I think. It is — what-
ever I make of it — a large and potential theme — which
Orlando was not perhaps. At any rate, I have taken my
fence.

•57

NINETEEN THIRTY
Wednesday^ April gth

What I now tliink (about The Waves) is that I can give
in a very few strokes the essentials of a person’s character.
It should be done boldly, almost as caricature. I have
yesterday entered what may be the last lap. Like every
piece of the book it goes by fits and starts. I never get away
with it; but am tugged back. I hope this makes for solidity;
and must look to my sentences. The abandonment of
Orlando and Lighthouse is much checked by the extreme
difficulty of the form — as it was in Jacob's Room. I think
this is the furthest development so far; but of course it may
miss fire somewhere. I think I have kept stoically to the
original conception. What I fear is that the rc-writing
will have to be so drastic that I may entirely muddle it
somehow. It is bound to be very imperfect. But I think it
possible that I have got my statues against the sky.

Sunday, April 13th

I read Shakespeare directly I have finished writing.
\Vhen my mind is agape and red-hot. Then it is astonish-
ing. I never yet knew how amazing his stretch and speed
and word coining power is, until I felt it utterly outpace
and outracc my o\vn, seeming to start equal and then I
see him draw ahead and do things I could not in my
wildest tumult and utmost press of mind imagine. Even
the less known plays are written at a speed that is quicker
than anybody else’s quickest; and the words drop so fast
one can’t pick them up. Look at this. “Upon a gather’d
lily almost wither’d.” (That is a pure accident. I happen
to light on it.) Evidently the pliancy of his mind was so
complete that he could furbish out any train of thought;
and, relaxing, let fall a shower of such unregarded flowers.
Why then should anyone else attempt to write? This is not
“writing” at all. Indeed, I could say that Shakespeare
surpasses literature altogether, if I knew what I meant.

Wedrusday, April 23rd

This is a very important morning in the history of The

,58 A WRITER’S DIARY

IVaves, because I think I have turned the corner and sec
the last lap straight ahead. I think I have got Bernard into
the final stride. He \vill go straight on now, and then stand
at the door: and then there will be a last picture of the
waves. We arc at Rodmell and I daresay I shall stay on
a day or two (if I dare) so as not to break the current and
finisli it. O Lord and then a rest; and then an article; and
clicn back again to this hideous shaping and moulding.
There may be some joys in it all the same.

Tuesdayy April 2glh

And I have just finished, with this very nib-ful of ink,
tlie last sentence of The Waves. I think I should record this
for my own information. Yes, it was the greatest stretch
of mind I ever knew; certainly the last pages; I don’t
think they flop as much as usual. And I think I have kept
starkly and ascctically to tlic plan. So much I svill say in
self-congratulation. But I have never written a book so
full of holes and patches; that will need re-building, yes,
not only re-modelling. I suspect the structure is wrong.
Never mind. I might have done something easy and
fluent; and this is a reach after that vision I had, the un-
happy summer— or three weeks — at Rodmell, after
finishing the Lighthouse. (And that reminds me— I mi^t
hastily provide my mind with somctliing else, or it will
again become pecldng and wretched — something imagin-
ative, if possible, and light; for I shall tire of Hazlitt and
criticism after the first divine relief; and I feel pleasantly
aware of various adumbrations in the back of my head;
a life of Duncan; no, something about canvases glowing

in a studio; but that can wait.)

And I think to myself as I walk down Southampton

Row, “And I have given you a new book.**

Thursday, May ist

And I have completely ruined my morning. Yes that
is literally true. They sent a book from The TimeSy as if
advised by Heaven of my liberty; and feeling my liberty

NINETEEN THIRTY

>39

wild upon me, I rushed to the cable and told \’an Doren
I would write on Scott. And now having read Scott, or
the editor whom Hugh provides, I won’t and can’t; and
have got into a fret tr>ing to read it, and writing to
Richmond to say I can’t: have wasted the brilliant first
of May which makes my skylight blue and gold; have
only a rubbish heap in my head; can’t read and can’t
^v^itc and can’t think. The truth is, of course, I want to
be back at The Waves. Yes that is the truth. Unlike all
my otlier books in every way, it is unlike them in this,
that I begin to re-write it, or conceive it again with
ardour, directly I have done. I begin to see what I had
in my mind; and want to begin cutting out masses of
irrelevance and clearing, sharpening and making the
good phrases shine. One wave after another. No room.
And so on. But then we are going touring Devon and
Cornwall on Sunday, which means a week off; and then
I shall perhaps make my critical brain do a month’s
work for exercise. What could it be set to? Or a story? —
no, not another story now . . .

Wednesday^ August 20th

The Waves is I think resolving itself (I am at page 100)
into a series of dramatic soliloquies. The thing is to keep
them running homogeneously in and out, in the rhythm
of the waves. Can they be read consecutively? I know
nothing about that. I think this is the greatest opportunity
I have yet been able to give myself; therefore I suppose
the most complete failure. Yet I respect myself for writing
this book — yes — even tliough it exhibits my congenital
faults.

Monday y September 8 th

I will signalise my return to life — that is writing — by
beginning a new book, and it happens to be Thoby’s
birthday, I remark. He would have been, I think, 50
today. After coming out here I had the usual — oh how
usual — headache; and lay, like a fibre of tired muscle on

i6o A WRITER’S DIARY

my bed in the sitting room, till yesterday. Now up again
and on again; with one new picture in my mind; my
defiance of death in the garden.

But the sentence with which this book was to open ran
“Nobody has ever worked so hard as I do”— exclaimed
in driving a paper fastener through the 14 pages of my
Hazlitt just now. Time was when I dashed off these things
all in the day’s work. Now, partly because I must do them
for America and make arrangements far ahead, I spend I
daresay a ridiculous amount of time, more of trouble, on
them. I began reading Hazlitt in January I think. And I
am not sure that I have speared that little eel in the
middle — that marrow — which is one’s object in criticism.
A very difficult business no doubt to find it, in all these
essays; so many; so short; and on all subjects. Never mind;
it shall go today; and my appetite for criticism is, oddly,
whettened. I have some gift that way, were it not for tlie
grind and the screw and the torture.

Tuesday^ December 2nd

No, I cannot write that very difficult parage in The
Waves this morning {how their lives hang lit up against
the Palace) all because of Arnold Bennett and Ethel’s ^

party. I can hardly get one word

Soon after this A.B. after another. There I was for a hours
went to France, drank SO it SCCmcd> alonc With B*, in
a glass of water and Ethel’s little back room. And this
died of typhoid. meeting I am convinced was engin-

(March 30th. His ecred by B. to “get on good terms
funeral today.) with Mrs. Woolf” — when Heaven

knows I don’t care a rap if I’m on
terms with B. or not. B. I say, because he can’t say B. He
ceases; shuts his eyes; leans back; one waits. “Begin,” he
at last articulates quietly, without any fluster. But the
method lengthens out intolerably a rather uninspired
discourse. It’s fun. I like the old creature. I do my best, as
a writer, to detect signs of genius in his smoky brown eye:
I see certain sensuality, power, I suppose; but O as he

* Ethel Sands.

NINETEEN THIRTY i6i

cackled out “W'hat a blundering fool I am — what a baby
— compared with Desmond MacCarthy — how clumsy —
how could I attack professors?” This innocence is engag-
ing; but would be more so if I felt him, as he infers, a
“creative artist”. He said that George Moore in The
Aiummer^s Wife had shown him The Five Towns: taught
him what to see there: has a profound admiration for
G. M.; but despises him for boasting of his sexual
triumphs. “He told me that a young girl had come to sec
him. And he asked her, as she sat on the sofa, to undress.
And he said she took off all her clothes and let him look
at her. . . . Now that I don’t believe . . . But he is a pro-
digious writer — he lives for words. Now he’s ill. Now he’s
an awful bore — he tells the same stories over and over.
And soon people unll say of me ‘He’s dead.* ” I rashly
said: “Of your books?” “No, of me,” he replied, attaching,
I suppose, a longer life than I do to his books.

“It’s the only life,” he said (this incessant scribbling,
one word after another, one thousand words daily), “I
don’t want anything else. I think of nothing but writing.
Some people arc bored,” “You have all the clothes you
want, I suppose,” I said. “And bath. And beds. And a
yacht.” “Oh yes, my clothes couldn’t be better cut.”

And at last I drew Lord David ^ in. And we taunted
the old creature with thinking us refined. He said the
gates of Hatfield were shut — “shut away from life”.
“But open on Thursdays,” said Lord D. “I don’t want to
go on Thursdays,” s^id B. “And you drop your ailches
on purpose,” I said, “thinking that you possess more ‘life’
than we do.” “I sometimes tease,” said B., “but I don’t
think I possess more life than you do. Now I must go home.
I have to write one thousand words tomorrow morning.”
And this left only the scrag end of the evening; and this
left me in a state where I can hardly drive my pen across
the page.

Reflection: It is presumably a bad thing to look through
articles, reviews etc. to find one’s own name. Yet I often
do.

* David Cedi.

i 62 A WRITER’S DIARY

Thursday^ December 4th

One word of slight snub in the Lit. Sup. today makes
me determine, first, to alter the whole of The \\ aces;
second, to put my back up against the public — one word
of slight snub.

Friday^ December 12th

This, I think, is the last day’s breathing space I allow
myself before I tackle the last lap of The IVaves. I have had
a week off — that is to say I have written three little
sketches; and dawdled and spent a morning shopping and
a morning, this morning, arranging my new table and
doing odds and ends — but I think I have got my breath
again and must be off for three or perhaps four weeks
more. Then, as I think, I shall make one consecutive
writing of The Waves etc. — the interludes — so as to work it
into one — and then, oh dear, some must be written again;
and then, corrections; and then send to Mabel; and then
correct the type; and then give to Leonard. Leonard per-
haps shall get it some time late in March. Then put away;
then print, perhaps in June.

Monday, December 22nd

It occurred to me last night while listening to a Beethoven
quartet that I would merge all the interjected passages
into Bernard’s final speech and end with the words O
solitude: thus making him absorb all those scenes and
having no further break. This is also to show that the
theme effort, effort, dominates: not the waves: and per-
sonality: and defiance: but I am not sure of the effect
artistically; because the proportions may need the inter-
vention of the waves finally so as to m^e a conclusion.

RODMELL
Saturday, December 2yth

But what’s the use of talking about Bernard’s final

NINETEEN THIRTY

163

speech? We came down on Tuesday and next day my
cold was the usual influenza and I am in bed with the
usual temperature and can’t use my wits or, as is visible,
form my letters. I daresay two days will see me normal;
but then the sponge behind my forehead will be dry and
pale — and so my precious fortnight of exaltation and con-
centration is snatched; and I shall go back to the racket
and Nelly without a thing done. I clear myself by thinking
that I may evolve some thoughts. Meanwhile it rains;
Annie’s child is ill; the dogs next door yap and yap; all
the colours are rather dim and the pulse of life dulled. 1
moon torpidly through book after book: Defoe’s Tour\
Rowan’s autobiography; Benson’s Memoirs; Jeans: in the
familiar way. The parson — Skinner — who shot himself
emerges like a bloody sun in a fog: a book
Diary of a worth, perhaps, looking at again in a clearer
Somerset mood. He shot himself in the bcechwoods above
rector. his house; he spent a life digging up stones and
reducing all places to Camclodunum; quar-
relled; bickered; yet loved his sons; yet turned tlicm out
of doors — a clear hard picture of one type of human life —
the exasperated, unhappy, struggling, intolerably afflicted.
Oh and I’ve read Q,. V.’s ^ letters; and wonder what
would happen had Ellen Terry been bom Queen. Com-
plete dbaster to the Empire? Q. V. entirely unacsthctic;
a kind of Prussian competence and belief in herself her
only prominences; material; brutal to Gladstone; like a
mistress with a dishonest footman. Knew her own mind.
But the mind radically commonplace, only its inherited
force and cumulative sense of power maJung it remarkable.

Tuesday^ December ^oth

What it wants is presumably unity; but it is I tliink
rather good (I am talking to myself over the fire about
The heaves). Suppose I could run all the scenes together
more? — by rhythms chiefly. So as to avoid those cuts; so
as to make the blood run like a torrent from end to end —
I don’t want the waste that the breaks give; I want to

‘ Queen Victoria.

,64 A WRITER’S DIARY

avoid chapters; that indeed is my achievement, if any,
here: a saturated unchopped completeness; changes of
scene, of mind, of person, done without spilling a drop.
Now if it could be worked over with heat and currency,
that’s all it wants. And I am getting my blood up (temp.
99). But all the same I went into Lewes and the Keynes
came to tea; and having got astride my saddle the whole
world falls into shape; it is this writing that gives me my
proportions.

19 3 1

Wednesday y January jth

My head is not in the first spring of energy: this fortnight
has brought me no views of the lapping doNvns — no fields
and hedges — too many firelit houses and lit up pages and
pen and ink— curse my influenza. It is very quiet here —
not a sound but the hiss of the gas. Oh but the cold was
too great at Rodmell. I was frozen like a small sparrow.
And I did write a few staggering sentences. Few books
have interested me more to write than The Waves. \Miy
even now, at the end, I’m turning up a stone or two: no
glibness, no assurance; you sec, I could perhaps do B.’s
soliloquy in such a way as to break up, dig deep, make
prose move — yes I swear — as prose has never moved
before; from the chuckle, the babble to the rhapsody.
Something new goes into my pot every morning — some-
thing that’s never been got at before. The high wind can’t
blow, because I’m chopping and tacking all the time. And
I’ve stored a few ideas for articles: one on Gosse — tlie
critic, as talker: the armchair critic; one on Letters — one
on Queens.

Now this is true: The Waves is written at such high pres-
sure that I can’t take it up and read it through between
tea and dinner; I can only write it for about one hour,Ns
from lo to 11.30. And the typing is almost the hardest
part of the work. Heaven help me if all my little 80,000
word books are going in future to cost me two years! But
I shall fling off, like a cutter leaning on its side, on some
swifter, slighter adventure — another Orlando perhaps.

Tuesday, January 20th

I have this moment, while having my bath, conceived
an entire new book ^ — a sequel to A Room of One's Own —

' Eventually Thru Gmruas.

165

,66 A WRITER’S DIARY

about the sexual life of women: to be called Professions

for Women perhaps — Lord how exciting!
This sprang out of my paper to be read
on \Vcdncsday to Pippa’s society. Now for
The Haves. Tliank God— but I’m very much
excited.

(This is
Hfre and Now,
I think.

May ’34.)

Friday^ January zyd

Too much excited, alas, to get on with The H aves. One
goes on making up “The Open Door”, or whatever it is
to be called, the didactivc demonstrative style conflicts
with the dramatic: I find it hard to get back inside Bernard
again.

Thursday^ January 26th

Heaven be praised, I can truthfully say on this first day
of being 49 that I have shaken off the obsession of Opening
the Door, and have returned to Waves: and have this instant
seen the entire book wltole, and now I can finish it — say
in under 3 weeks. That takes me to February i6th; then
I propose, after doing Gossc, or an article perhaps, to dash
off the rough sketch of Open Door, to be finished by April
1st. (Easter is April 3rd.) Wc shall then, I hope, have an
Italian journey; return say May ist and finish Waves, so
that the MS. can go to be printed in June and appear in
September. These are possible dates anyhow. Yesterday
at Rodmcll we saw a magpie and heard the first spring
birds: sharp egotistical, like man. A hot sun; walked over
Caburn; home by Horlcy and saw three men dash from a
blue car and race without hats across a field. Wc saw a
silver and blue aeroplane in the middle of a field, appar-
ently unhurt, among trees and cows. This morning the
paper says three men were killed — the aeroplane dashing
to the earth. But we went on, reminding me of that
epitaph in the Greek anthology: when I sank, the other
ships sailed on.

NINETEEN THIRTY-ONE

167

Monday^ February 2nd

I think I am about to finish The Waves. I think I miffht
finish it on Saturday.

This is merely an author’s note: never have I screwed
my brain so tight over a book. The proof is that I am
almost incapable of other reading or writing. I can only
flop wide once the morning is over. Oh Lord the relief
when this week is over and I have at any rate the feeling
that I have wound up and done with that long labour:
ended that vision. I think I have just done what I meant;
of course I have altered the scheme considerably; but my
feeling is that I have insisted upon saying, by hook or
by crook, certain things I meant to say. I imagine that
the hookedness may be so great that it will be a failure
from a reader’s point of view. Well, never mind: it is a
brave attempt. I think, something struggled for. Oh and
then the delight of skirmishing free again — the delight of
being idle and not much minding what happens; and then
I shall be able to read again, >vith all my mind — a thing
I haven’t done these four months I daresay. This will have
taken me 18 months to >vrite: and we can’t publish it till
the autumn 1 suppose.

Wednesday, February 4th

A day ruined, for us both. L. has to go every morning
at 10.15 the Courts, where his jury is still called, but
respited always till 10.15 the next day; and this morning,
which should have dealt a formidable blow at The Waves
— B. is within two days I think of saying O Death — was
ruined by Elly, who was to have come at 9.30 sharp but
did not come till 1 1. And it is now 12.30 and we sat talk-
ing about the period and professional women, after the
usual rites with the stethoscope, seeking vainly the cause
of my temperature. If we like to spend 7 guineas we might
catch a bug — but we don’t like. And so 1 am to eat Bemax
and — the usual routine.

How strange and wilful these last exacerbations of The
Waves arc! I was to have finished it at Christmas.

,68 A WRITER’S DIARY

Today Ethel ^ comes. On Monday I went to hear her
rehearse. A vast Portland Place house with the cold
wedding cake Adams plaster: shabby red carpets; flat
surfaces washed with dull ^eens. The rehearsal was in
a long room with a bow window looking on, in fact in,
to other houses — iron staircases, chimneys, roofs — a barren
brick outlook. There was a roaring fire in the Adams
grate. Lady L. a now shapeless sausage, and Mrs.
Hunter, 2 a swathed satin sausage, sat side by side on
a sofa. Ethel stood at the piano in the window, in
her battered felt, in her jersey and short skirt conducting
with a pencil. There was a drop at the end of her nose.
Miss Suddaby was singing the Soul, and I observed that
she went through precisely the same attitudes of ecstasy
and inspiration in the room as in a hall: there were two
young or youngish men. Ethel’s pinct nez rode nearer and
nearer the tip of her nose. She sang now and then; and
once, taking the bass, made a cat squalling sound — but
everything she does with such forthrightness, directness,
that there is nothing ridiculous. She loses self-consciousness
completely. She seems all vitalised; all energised. She
knocks her hat from side to side. Strides rhythmically
down the room to signify to Elizabeth that this is the Greek
melody; strides back; Now the furniture moving begins,
.she said, referring to some supernatural gambols connected
with the prisoner’s escape, or defiance or death. I suspect
the music is too literary — too stressed — too didactic for
my taste. But I am always impressed by the fact that it is
music— I mean that she has spun these coherent chords,
harmonies, melodies out of her so practical vigorous
student mind. What if she should be a great composer?
This fantastic idea is to her the merest commonplace: it
is the fabric of her being. As she conducts, she hears music
like Beethoven’s. As she strides and turns and wheels about
to us perched mute on chairs she thinks this is about the
most important event now taking place in London. And
perhaps it is. Well — I watched the curiously sensitive,
perceptive Jewish face of old Lady L. trembling like a
butterfly’s antennae to the sound. How sensitive to music
2 Ethel Smyth. ■ Ethel Smyth’s sister.

I

NINETEEN THIRTY-ONE 169

old Jewesses are — how pliable, how supple. Mrs. Hunter
sat like a wax figure, composed, upholstered, transfixed,
with her gold chain purse.

Saturday^ February yth

Here in the few minutes that remain, I must record,
heaven be praised, the end of The JVaves. I wrote the
words O Death fifteen minutes ago, having reeled across
the last ten pages with some moments of such intensity
and intoxication that I seemed only to stumble after my
own voice, or almost, after some sort of speaker (as when
I was mad) I was almost afraid, remembering the voices
that used to fly ahead. Anyhow, it is done; and I have
been sitting these 15 minutes in a state of glory, and calm,
and some tears, thinking of Thoby and if I could write
Julian Thoby Stephen 1881-1906 on the first page. I sup-
pose not. How physical the sense of triumph and relief is!
Whether good or bad, it’s done; and, as I certainly felt at
the end, not merely finished, but rounded off, completed,
the thing stated — how hastily, how fragmentarily I know;
but I mean that I have netted that fin in the waste of
water which appeared to me over the marshes out of my
window at Rodmcll when I was coming to an end of
To the Lighthouse.

What interests me in the last stage was the freedom and
boldness with which my imagination picked up, used and
tossed aside all the images, symbols which I had prepared.
I am sure that this is the right way of using them — not in
set pieces, as I had tried at first, coherently, but simply as
images, never making them work out; only suggest. Thus
I hope to have kept the sound of the sea and the birds,
dawn and garden subconsciously present, doing their
work under ground.

Saturday, March 28th

Arnold Bennett died last night; which leaves me sadder
Aan I should have supposed. A lovable genuine man;
impeded, somehow a litde awkward in life; well meaning;
ponderous; kindly; coarse; knovring he was coarse; dimly

170 A WRITER’S DIARY

floundering and feeling for something else; glutted with
success; wounded in his feelings; avid; thicklipped;
prosaic intolerably; rather dignified; set upon writing; yet
always taken in; deluded by splendour and success; but
naive; an old bore; an egotist; much at the mercy of life
for all his competence; a shopkeeper’s view of literature;
yet with the rudiments, covered over with fat and pros-
perity and the desire for hideous Empire furniture; of
sensibility. Some real understanding power, as well as a
gigantic absorbing power. These are the sort of things that
I think by fits and starts this morning, as I sit journalising;
I remember his determination to write i,ooo words daily;
and how he trotted off to do it that night, and feel some
sorrow that now he will never sit down and begin rnethodi-
caily covering his regulation number of pages in his work-
manlike beautiful but dull hand. Queer how one regrets
the dispersal of anybody who seemed — as I say — genuine:
who had direct contact with life — for he abused me; and
I yet rather wished him to go on abusing me; and me
abusing him. An element in life— even in mine tliat was
so remote — taken away. This is what one minds.'

Saturday^ April nth

Oh I am so tired of correcting my own writing — these
8 articles — I have however learnt I think to dash: not to
finick. I mean the writing is free enough; it’s the rcpulsive-
ncss of correcting that nauseates me. And the cramming in
and the cutting out. And articles and more articles are
asked for. Forever I could write articles.

But I have no pen — well, it will just make a mark. And
not much to say, or rather too much and not the mood.

Wednesdayy May 13th

Unless I write a few sentences here from time to time

' There is an entry in Arnold Bennett’s dia^ for 1930 in which he
records that he went to a dinner party at which V. W. was another
guest, and adds: “Virginia is all right; other guests held their breath
to listen to us.”

>71

NINETEEN THIRTY-ONE

I shall, as they say, forget the use of my pen. I am now
engaged in typing out from start to finish the 332 pages
of that very condensed book The Waves. I do 7 or 8 daily;
by which means I hope to have the whole complete by
June i6th or thereabouts. This requires some resolution;
but I can see no other way to make all the corrections and
keep the lilt and join up and expand and do all the other
filial processes. It is like sweeping over an entire canvas
with a wet brush.

Saturday y May ^oth

No, I have just said, it being 12.45, ^ cannot write any
more, and indeed I cannot: I am copying
death chapter; have re-written it tivice.

halfway in ^ and finish it, I hope, this

26 days. afternoon. But how it rolls into a tight ball
Shall finish muscles in my brain! This is the most
by tstjuly concentrated work I have ever done— and
with luck, oh the relief when it is finished. But also the

most interesting.

Tuesday, June syd

And yesterday, 22nd June, when, I think, the days
begin to draw in, I finished my re-typing of The Waves.
Not that it is finished — oh dear no. For then I must
co^ect the rc-rc-typing. This work I began on May 5th,
and no one can say that I have been hasty or careless this

time; though I doubt not the lapses and slovenliness are
innumerable.

Tuesday, July yth

O to seek relief from this incessant correction (I am
c M? ^ interludes) and write a few words carelessly.
?, nothing; to tramp over the downs,

blown hkc thistle, as irresponsible. And to get away from
this hard knot in which my brain has been so tight spun
—I mean The Waves. Such are my sentiments at half

,72 A WRITER’S DIARY

past twelve on Tuesday July 7th — a fine day I think
and everything, so the tag runs in my head, handsome
about us.

Tuesday^ July 14th

It is now twelve o’clock on the morning of July 14th —
and (Bob ^ has come in to ask me to sign a paper to
get Palmer a pension. Bob says . . . mostly about his new
house, washing basins, can he use a candle still to go to
bed with; Bessy is moving in today; he is off to Italy for a
month; will 1 send a copy of my new book to Count
Moira, all Italians arc Counts, once he showed four

Counts round Cambridge; Palmer and so on:

shuffling from foot to foot, taking his hat off and putting it
on again, moving to the door and returning.

I had meant to say that I have just finished correcting
the Hampton Court scene. (This is the final correction,
please God!)

But my JVavrs account runs, I think, as follows: —

I began it, seriously, about September loth 1929*

I finished the first version on April loth 1930.

I began the second version on May ist 1930.

I finished the second version on February 7th 1931.

I began to correct the second version on May ist 1931,
finished 22nd June 1931.

I began to correct the typescript on 25th June i 93 t*
Shall finish (I hope) i8th July 1931.

Then remain only the proofs.

Friday^ July 17th

Yes, this morning I think I may say I have finished.
That is to say I have once more, for die 1 8th time, copied
out the opening sentences. L. will read it tomor-
Which I row; and I shall open this book to rcco^ his
then lost, verdict. My own opinion — oh dear — it*s a
difficult book. I don’t know that I’ve ever felt
so strained. And I’m nervous, I confess, about L. For one

^ R. C. Trevelyan.

NINETEEN THIRTY-ONE 173

thing he will be honest, more than usually. And it may be
a failure. And I can’t do any more. And I’m inclined to
^nk it good but incoherent, inspissate; one jerk succeed-
ing another. Anyhow it is laboured, compact. Anyhow I
had a shot at my vision— if it’s not a catch, it’s a cast in
the right direction. But I’m nervous. It may be small and
finicky in general effect. Lord knows. As I say, repeating
it to enforce the rather unpleasant little lift in my heart,
I shall be nervous to hear what L. says when he comes out,
say tomorrow night or Sunday morning, to my garden
room, carrying the MS. and sits himself down and begins
“WcU!” ^

Sunday, July igth

“It is a masterpiece,” said L., coming out to my lodge
this morning. “And the best of your books.” This note I
make; adding that he also thinks the first 100 pages
extremely difficult and is doubtful how far any common
reader will follow. But Lord! what a relief! I stumped off
m the rain to make a little round to Rat Farm in jubila-
tion and am almost resigned to the fact that a goat farm,
with a house to be built, is now in process on the slope
near Northease.

Monday, August loth

I have now— 10.45— read the first chapter of The
Waves, and made no changes, save 2 words and 3 commas.
Yes, anyhow this is exact and to the point. I like it. And
see that for once my proofs will be despatched with a few
pencil strokes. Now my blood mounts: I think “I am
taking my fences ... We have asked Raymond. I am
forging through the sea, in spite of headache, in spite of
bitterness. I may also get a * I will now write a

little at Flush.

* The word is illegible.

174 A WRITER’S DIARY

Saturdayy August 15th

I am in rather a flutter— proof reading. I can only read
a few pages at a time. So it was when I wrote it and Heaven
knows what virtue it has, this ecstatic book.

Sundayy August i6ih

1 should really apologise to this book for using it ^ I am
doing to write off my aimlessness; that is I am doing my
proofs— the last chapter this morning— and find that I
must stop after half an hour and let my mind spread, after
these moments of concentration. I cannot write my life
of Flushy because the rhythm is wrong. I think The ^aves
is anyhow tense and packed; since it screws my brain up
like this. And what will the reviewers say? And my
friends? They can’t, of course, find anything very new to

say.

Mondayy August 17th

Well now, it being just after 12.30, 1 have put the last
corrections in The Waves'y done my proofs; and they shall
go tomorrow — never, never to be looked at again by me,

1 imagine.

Tuesday y September 22nd

And Miss Holtby says "It is a poem, more completely
than any of your other books, of course. It is most rarely
subtle. It has seen more deeply into the human heart, per-
haps, than even To the Lighthouse . . .** and though I copy
the sentence, because it is in the chart of my temperature.
Lord, as I say, that temperature which was deathly low
this time last week and then fever high, doesn’t rise; is
normal. I suppose I’m safe; I think people can only repeat.
And I’ve forgotten so much. What I want is to be told that
this is solid and means something. Wliat it means I myself
shan’t know till I write another book. And I’m the hare,
a long way ahead of the hounds my critics.

»75

NINETEEN THIRTY-ONE
52 Tavistock Square

Monday y October 5th

A note to say I am all trembling with pleasure— can’t
go on with my Letter — because Harold Nicolson has
rung up to say The Waves is a masterpiece. Ah Hah — so it
wasn’t all wasted then. I mean this vision I had here has
some force upon other minds. Now for a cigarette and
then a return to sober composition.

Well, to continue this egotistic diary: I am not terribly
excited; no; at arms length more than usual; all this talk,
because if the W, is anything it is an adventure which I
go on alone; and the dear old Lit. Sup: who twinkles and
beams and patronises — a long, and for The TimeSy kind
and outspoken review — don’t stir me very much. Nor
Harold in Action either. Yes; to some extent; I should have
been unhappy had they blamed, but Lord, how far away
I become from all this; and we’re jaded too, with people,
with doing up parcels. I wonder if it is good to feel this
remoteness — that is, that The Waves is not what they say.
Odd, that they {The Times) should praise my characters
when I meant to have none. But I’m jaded; I want my
marsh, my down, a quiet waking in my airy bedroom.
Broadcasting tonight; to Rodmcll tomorrow. Next week
I shall have to stand the racket.

Fridayy October gth

Really, this unintelligible book is being better “received”
than any of them. A note in The Times proper — the first
time this has been allowed me. And it sells — how unex-
pected, how odd that people can read that difficult
grinding stuff!

Saturday, October lyth

More notes on The Waves. The sales, these past three
days, have fallen to 50 or so: after the great flare up when
we sold 500 in one day, the brushwood has died down, as

,76 A WRITER’S DIARY

I foretold. (Not that I thought we should sell more than
3,000.) What has happened is that the library readers
can’t get through it and are sending their copies back. So,

I prophesy, it will now dribble along till we have sold
6,000 and then almost die, yet not quite. For it has been
received, as I may say, quoting the stock phrases without
vanity, with applause. All the provinces read enthusiasti-
cally. I am rather, in a sense, as the M.*s would say,
touched. The unknotvn provincial reviewers say with
almost one accord, here is Mrs. Woolf doing her best
work; it can’t be popular; but we respect her for so doing;
and find The JVaoes positively exciting. I am in danger,
indeed, of becoming our leading novelist, and not with
the highbrows only.

Monday^ November i6th

Here I will give myself the pleasure — shall I? — of copy-
ing a sentence or two from Morgan’s unsolicited letter on

The JVaves : —

“I expect I shall write to you again when I have re-read
The Heaves. 1 have been looking in it and talking about it
at Cambridge. It’s difficult to express oneself about a work
which one feels to be so very important, but I’ve the sort
of excitement over it which comes from believing that
one’s encountered a classic.”

I daresay that gives me more substantial pleasure than
any letter I’ve had about any book. Yes, I think it does,
coming from Morgan. For one thing it gives me reason
to tliink I shall be right to go on along this very lonely
path. I mean in the City today I was thinking of another
book — about shopkeepers, and publicans, with low life
scenes: and I ratified thb sketch by Morgan’s judgment.
Dadie agrees too. Oh yes, between 50 ^ think I

shall write out some very singular books, if I live. I mean
I think I am about to embody at last the exact shapes
my brain holds. What a long toil to reach this beginning
— if The Waves is my first work in my own style! To be
noted, as curiosities of my literary history: I sedulously

NINETEEN THIRTY-ONE 177

avoid meeting Roger and Lytton whom I suspect do not
like TTu fVapes.

I am working very hard — in my way, to furbish up two
long Elizabethan articles to front a new Common Reader:
then I must go through the whole long list of those articles.
I feel too, at the back of my brain, that I can devise a new
critical method; something far less stiff and formal than
these Times articles. But I must keep to the old style in
this volume. And how, I wonder, could I do it? There
must be some simpler, subtler, closer means of writing
about books, as about people, could I hit upon it. {The
fVaoes has sold more than 7,000.)

I 9 3 2

Wednesday, January 13th

Oh but this is, as I always say, making an apology
myself to myself, not the first day of the year. It is the
thirteenth, and 1 am in one of those lassitudes and ebbs of
life when I cannot heave another word on to the wall.
My word, what a heaving The Waves was, that I still feel
the strain!

Can we count on another 20 years? I shall be fifty on
25th, Monday week that is: and sometimes feel that I
have lived 250 years already, and sometimes that I am-
still the youngest person in the omnibus. (Nessa said that
she still always thinks this, as she sits down.) And I want
to write another four novels: Waves, I mcanj and the
Tap on the Door’, and to go through English literature, like
a string through cheese, or rather like some industrious
insect, eating its way from book to book, from Chaucer to
Lawrence. This is a programme, considering my slowness,
and how I get slower, thicker, more intolerant of the fling
and the rush, to last out my 20 years, if I have them.

Sunday, January 31st

Having just finished, as I say, tlic final version as 1 call
it, of my Letter to a Toung Poet, I can take a moment’s
liberty. From the cynical tone of this sentence I sec that
my finality is not secure. Writing becomes harder and
harder. Things I dashed off I now compress and rc-statc.
And for purposes which I need not go into here, I want to
use these pages for dialogue for a time.

Monday, February 8th

Why did I ever say I would produce another volume of
Common Reader? It will take me week after week, month
after montli. However a year spent — save for diversions

178

NINETEEN THIRTY-TWO 179

in Greece and Russia — in reading through English litera-
ture will no doubt do good to my fictitious brain. Rest it
anyhow. One day, all of a rush, fiction will burst in. These
remarks are jotted down at the end of a long morning’s
work on Donne, wliich will have to be done again, and is
it worth the doing? I wake in the night with the sense of
being in an empty hall: Lytton dead and those factories
building. What is the point of it — life — when 1 am not
working — suddenly becomes thin, indifferent. Lytton is
dead, and nothing definite to mark it. Also they write
flimsy articles about him.

Thursday^ February nth

My mind is set running upon A A'noeh on the Door ’
(what’s its name?) owing largely to reading Wells on
Woman — how she must be ancillary and decorative in the
world of the future, because she has been tried, in 10 years,
and has not proved anything.

Tuesday^ February 16th

And I have just “finished” — I use inverted commas
ironically— my Donne, a great but I think well inten-
tioned grind. And I’m quivering and itching to write my
—what’s it to be called?— “Men arc like that”?— no,
that’s too patently feminist. The sequel then, for which I
have collected enough powder to blow up St. Pauls. It is
to have four pictures. And I must go on with the Common
Reader — for one thing, by way of proving my credentials.

Tuesday, May lyth

What is the right attitude towards criticism? \Vhat
ought I to feel and say when Miss B. devotes an article in
Scrutiny to attacking me? She is young, Cambridge,
ardent. And she says I’m a very bad writer. Now I think
the thing to do is to note the pith of what is said — that I

* Eventually TTirce Guineas,

,8o A WRITER’S DIARY

don’t think— then to use the little kick of energy which
opposition supplies to be more vigorously oneself. It is
perhaps true that my reputation will now decline. I shall
be laughed at and pointed at. What should be my attitude
—clearly Arnold Bennett and Wells took the criticism of
their youngers in the wrong way. The right way is not to
resent; not to be longsuffcring and Christian and sub-
missive either. Of course, with my odd mixture of extreme
rashness and modesty (to analyse roughly) I very soon
recover from praise and blame. But I want to find out an
attitude. The most important thing is not to think very
much about oneself. To investigate candidly the chargej
but not fussily, not very anxiously. On no account to
retaliate by going to the other extreme — thinking too
much. And now that thorn is out— perhaps too easily.

Wednesday y May 25th

Now I have “finished” David Copperjieldy and I say to
myself can’t I escape to some pleasanter atmosphere?
Can’t I expand and embalm and become a sentient living
creature? Lord how I suffer! What a terrific capacity I
possess for feeling with intensity — now, since we came
back. I’m screwed up into a ball; can’t get into step; can’t
make things dance; feel awfully detached; sec youth; feel
old; no, that’s not quite it: wonder how a year or so per-
haps is to be endured. Think, yet people do live; can t
imagine what goes on behind faces. All is surface hard;
myself only an organ that takes blows, one after another;
the horror of the hard raddled faces in the flower show
yesterday: the inane pointlcssncss of all this exbtence:
hatred of my own brainlessness and indecision; the old
treadmill feeling, of going on and on and on, for no reason:
Lytton’s death; Carrington’s; a longing to speak to him;
all that cut away, gone: . . . women: my book on profes-
sions: shall I write another novel; contempt for my lack of
intellectual power; reading Wells without understanding;
. . . society; buying clothes; Rodmell spoilt; all England
spoilt: terror at night of things generally wrong in the
universe; buying clothes; how I hate Bond Street and

NINETEEN THIRTY-TWO i8i

spending money on clothes: worst of all is this dejected
barrennps. And my eyes hurt: and my hand trembles.

A saying of Leonard’s comes into my head in this season
of complete inanity and boredom. “Things have gone
wrong somehow.” It was the night C. killed herself. We
were walking along that silent blue street with the scaf-
folding. I saw all the violence and unreason crossing in
the air: ourselves small; a tumult outside: something
terrifying: unreason — shall I make a book out of this?
It would be a way of bringing order and speed again into
my world.

Thursday^ May 26th

And now today suddenly the weight on my head is
lifted and I can think, reason, keep to one thing and con-
centrate. Perhaps this is the beginning of another spurt.
Perhaps I owe it to my conversation with L. last night.
I tried to analyse my depression: how my brain is jaded
with the conflict within of two types of thought, the
critical, the creative; how I am harassed by tlie strife
and jar and uncertainty without. This morning the inside

of my head feels cool and smooth instead of strained and
turbulent.

Tuesday^ June 28th

Just “finished de Quincey”. Thus am I trying to keep
pace with the days and deliver the second C,R. done on
the last of June, which I sec with dismay is Thursday. I
spent last summer thus toiling over The Waves. This is
less severe by a long chalk (what’s the origin of that?
cricket pitch? Billiards?) Anyhow it blazes; swoons; the
heat. Royal, imperial, are the words I fumble with in the
Square. So hot yesterday— so hot, when Prince Mirsky
came with his fluent Russian lady: I mean she was full
of temperament; had the free gestures of the Slav: but
Mirsky was trap mouthed: opened and bit his remark
to pieces: has yellow misplaced teeth: wrinkles his fore-
head; despair, suffering, very marked on his face. Has

i 82 A WRITER’S DIARY

been in England, in boarding houses, for 12 years; now
returns to Russia “forever”. I thought as I watched his
eye brighten and fade — soon there’ll be a bullet through
your head. That’s one of the results of war: this trapped
cabin’d man. But that didn’t lubricate our tea.

Wednesday^ June 2gth

Whenever I suck my pen, my lip is covered wth ink.
.'\nd I have no ink with which to fill my pot; and it is
10 minutes past 12; and I have just finished Hardy; and I
promise myself that the C.R. will be finally done by Wed-
nesday next. And today is Sunday. Last night at 10 the
Zeppelin came past with a string of light hanging from
its navel. This consoled me for not having gone to the last
night of the ballet. Now I have cleaned my table, which
John inherits while I’m away. And I should now attack
Ch. Rossetti. But Lord, how tired one gets of one’s own
writing.

Today is Wednesday and the C.R. I confess is not yet
quite done. But then — well I had to re-write the last
article, which I had thought so good, entirely. Not for
many years shall I collect another bunch of articles.

Monday ^ July iitk

1 will take a new pen and a new page to record the fact
which is now a fact that I have slipped a green rubber
band round The Common Readevy second series, and there it
lies, at 10 minutes to one, ready to take upstairs. There is
no sense of glory; only of drudgery done. And yet I dare-
say it’s a nice enough book to read — I doubt that I shall
write another like it all the same. I must find a quicker
cut into books than this. But heaven be praised, not now.
Now I’m taking a holiday. That is to say, what shall I
write tomorrow? I can sit down and think.

Wednesday t July 13th

I have been sleeping over a promising novel. That’s the

NINETEEN THIRTY-TWO ,83

way to write. I’m ruminating, as usual, how to improve
my lot; and shall begin by walking, alone, in Regent’s
Park this afternoon. What I mean is why do a single thing
one doesn t want to do^fbr instance buy a hat or read a
book. Old Joseph ^Vright and old Lizzie Wright arc people
I respect. Indeed I do hope the second volume will come
this morning. He was a maker of dialect dictionaries: he
was a workhouse boy— his mother went charing. .\nd he
married Miss Lea a clergyman’s daughter. And I’ve just
read their love letters with respect. And he said: “Always
please yourself — then one person’s happy at any rate.”
And she said make details part of a whole — get pro-
portions right — contemplating marriage witli Joe. Odd
how rare it is to meet people who say things that we our-
selves could have said. Their attitude to life much our
own. Joe a very thick sturdy man — “I am unique in
certain respects,” he said. “\Vc must leave some record of
Joe and Lizzie to posterity.” Had his old working mother
to Oxford. She thought All Souls would make a good
Co-op-. Had a fist and struck boys. His notion of learning.
What IS It? I sometimes would like to be learned myself.
About sounds and dialects. Still what use is it? I mean, if
you Ijave that mind why not make something beautiful?
Yes, but then the triumph of learning is that it leaves
something done solidly forever. Everybody knows now
about dialect, owing to his dictionary. He is a coarse
sturdy variety of Sidney Webb and Walter Leaf— stockish,
hairy; more humorous and forcible than either. Could
work all mght, wash and work all next day. Miss Weisse,
Tovey s lady, brought them together— made Lizzie give
up arranging the flowers in the rectory and go to Oxford
She a woman of character. Wouldn’t accept Joe’s offer of
a job because he made her feel like a bear at the end of a
chain. But she married him. They were lost in the woods
by Virginia Water in 1896: and sat on a seat and had an
hour of great suffering, after which she accepted him—
they got on a baker’s cart and were taken back to Miss
Weisse. An absorbing story. Joe knew all about servants.
Joe Uught himself to read at 14: taught mill boys in a
bedroom for 2d a week: a surly but very sensitive man.

i84 A WRITER’S DIARY

apparently. Now this is a testimony to Joe and Lizzie that
I’ve been thinking how I should have liked to sec them —
would now like to write to her. A fine face with bright big
eyes. Yes, but what happens in volume two?

RODMELL

Friday^ August ^ih

Yesterday L. came into my room at breakfast and said,
“Goldie * is dead.” I never knew him well but had the
common feeling that I have with those trusty Cambridge
fellows: and was pleased, of course, by what he wrote of
The Waves: and so came nearer. I get Uie strangest feeling
now of our all being in the midst of some vast operation:
of the splendour of tliis undertaking — life: of being cap-
able of dying: an immensity surrounds me. No — I can’t
get it — shall let it brood itself into “a novel” no doubt.
(It’s tJius I get the conception from which the book con-
denses.) At night L. and I talked of death again, the
second time this year: how we may be like worms crushed
by a motor car: what docs the worm know of the car —
how it is made? There may be a reason: if so not one we,
as human beings, can grasp. Goldie had some mystic
belief.

And now we have been to Lewes races and seen the
fat lady in black with parts of her person spilling over the
shooting scat on which her bulk is so insecurely poised:
seen the riff raff of sporting society all lined up in their
cars with the dickies bulging with picnic baskets: he^d
the bark of backers: seen for a second the pounding
straining horses with red faced jockeys lashing them pound
by. What a noise they made — what a sense of muscle hard
and stretched — and beyond the downs this windy sunny
day looked wild and remote; and I could rethink them
into uncultivated land again.

* G. Lowes Dickinson.

NINETEEN THIRTY-TWO 185

Wednesday, August lyth

Now I think I have corrected tlie C.R. till I can correct
no longer. And I have a few minutes’ holiday before I
need take the proofs in to L. Shall I then describe how I
fainted again? That is the galloping hooves got wild in my
head last Thursday night as I sat on the terrace with L.
How cool it is after the heat! I said. We were watching
the downs draw back into fine darkness after they had
burnt like solid emerald all day. Now that was being
softly finely veiled. And the white owl was crossing to
fetch mice from the marsh. Then my heart leapt: and
stopped: and leapt again: and I tasted that queer bitter-
ness at the back of my throat; and the pulse leapt into my
head and beat and beat, more savagely, more quickly.
I am going to faint, I said, and slipped off my chair and
lay on the grass. Oh no, I was not unconscious. I was alive:
but possessed with this struggling team in my head: gal-
loping, pounding. I thought something will burst in my
brain if this goes on. Slowly it muffled itself. I pulled
myself up and staggered, with what inftnite difficulty and
^larm, now truly fainting and seeing the garden pain-
fully lengthened and distorted, back, back, back—how
long it seemed — could I drag myself? — to the house: and

... , 1 . , ^ on my bed. Then pain, as of

childbirth; and then that too slowly faded; and I lay pre-
siding, like a flickering light, like a most solicitous mother,
over the shattered splintered fragments of my body. A very
acute and unpleasant experience.

Saturday, August 20th

^ 5“***®“^ day in London yesterday. I said to myself
standing^ at L.’s window, Look at the present moment
because it s not been so hot for 21 years. There was a hot
wind, ^ if one passed over a kitchen, going from the studio
to the Press. Outside girls and young men lying in white
on the square grass. So hot wc couldn’t sit in tlie dining
^room. L. fetched and carried and hardly let me walk
upstairs carrying my own body. Coming back we had tlie

i86

A WRITER’S DIARY

car shut and the windscreen open — thus sat in a hot rough
gale which, as we came to the lanes and woods, became
deliciously cold and green. The coolest place is the front
scat of a car going at 40 or 50 miles with the windscreen
open. Today, at 12.30, a wind rose: clouds descended;
now at 3.45 it’s almost a normal warm summer day. For
10 days this heat has lasted. After my faint my head soon
throbs; or so I think. I think a little of dying suddenly and
reflect, Well then go about eating and drinking and laugh-
ing and feeding the fish. Odd — the silliness one attributes
to death — the desire one has to belittle it and be found,
as Montaigne said, laughing svith girls and good fellows.
And L. is staking out the dewpond and I am going in to
be photographed. Three more books appearing on Mrs.
Woolf; which reminds me to make a note, sometime, on
my work.

A very good summer, this, for all my shying and jibbing,
my tremors this morning. Beautifully quiet, airy, power-
ful. I believe I want this more humane existence for my
next — to spread carelessly among one’s friends — to feel
the width and amusement of human life: not to strain to
make a pattern just yet: to be made supple, and to let the
juice of usual things, talk, character, seep through me,
quietly, involuntarily, before I say Stop and take out my
pen. Yes, my thighs now begin to run smooth: no longer is
every nci’vc upright. Yesterday we took plums to old
Mrs. Grey. She is shrunk and sits on a hard chair in the
corner. The door open. She twitches and trembles. Has
the wild expressionless stare of the old. L. liked her despair:
*T crawls up to bed hoping for the day; and I crawls down
hoping for the night. I’m an ignorant old woman — can’t
write or read. But I prays to God every night to take me —
oh to go to my rest. Nobody can say what pains I suffer.
Feel my shoulder,” and she began shuffling with a safety
pin. I felt it. “Hard as iron; full of water, and my legs too.”
She pulled down her stoc^ng. “The dropsy. I’m ninety-
two; and all my brothers and sisters are dead; my daugh-
ter’s dead; my husband is dead. . . She repeated her
misery, her list of ills, over and over; could see nothing
else; could only begin all over again; and kissed my hand,

187

NINETEEN THIRTY-TWO

thanking us for our pound. This is what we make of our
lives — no reading or \vriting — keep her alive with i

doctors when she wishes to die. Human ingenuity in tor-
ture is very great.

LONDON

Sunday, October 2nd

Yes, I will allow myself a new nib. Odd how coming
back here upsets my writing mood. Odder still how pos-
sessed I am with the feeling that now, aged 50, I’m just
poised to shoot forth quite free straight and undeflected
my bolts whatever they are. Therefore all this flitter
flutter of weekly newspapers interests me not at all. These
are the soul’s changes. I don’t believe in ageing. I believe
in forever altering one’s aspect to the sun. Hence my
optimism. And to alter now, cleanly and sanely, I want to
shuffle off* this loose living randomness; people; reviews;
fame, all the glittering scales; and be withdrawn, and con-
centrated. So I shan’t run about, just yet, buying clothes,
seeing people. We arc off to Leicester tomorrow, to the
Labour Party Conference. Then back to the fever of pub-
mhing.^ My C.R. doesn’t cause me a single tremor. Nor
Holtby s book.* I’m interested in watching what goes on
for the moment without wishing to take part — a good
frame of mind when one’s conscious of power. Then I am
backed now by the downs: the country: how happy L. and
I are at Rodmell: what a free life that is — sweeping 30 or
40 miles; coming in when and how we like; sleeping in the
empty house; dealing triumphantly with interruptions;
and diving daily into that divine loveliness — always some
walk; and the gulls on the purple plough; or going over to
1 airing Neville- — these are the flights I most love now — in
the the indiflTcrent air. No being jerked, teased,

tugged. And people come easily, flowering into intimacy in
my room. But this is the past, or future. I am also reading
D. H. L.* with the usual sense of frustration: and that he

• D°H ‘

,88 A WRITER’S DIARY

and 1 have too much in common — the same pressure to be
ourselves: so tliat I don’t escape when I read him: am
suspended: what I want is to be made free of another world.
This Proust docs. To me Lawrence is airless, confined: I
don’t want this, I go on saying. And the repetition of one
idea. I don’t want that either. I don’t want “a philosophy”
in the least: I don’t believe in other people’s reading of
riddles. What I enjoy (in the Letters) is the sudden visual-
isation; the great ghost springing over the wave (of the
spray in Cornwall) but I get no satisfaction from his ex-
planations of what he sees. And then it’s harrowing: this
pandng effort after something: and “I have left” and

then Government hoofing him out, like a toad: and ban-
ning his book: the brutality of civilised society to this pant-
ing agonised man: and how futile it was. All this makes a
sort of gasping in his letters. And none of it seems essential.
So he pants and jerks. Then too I don’t like strumming
with two fingers — and the arrogance. After all, English
has one million words: why confine yourself to 6? and
praise yourself for so doing. But it’s die preaching that
rasps me. Like a person delivering judgment when only
half the facts arc there: and clinging to the rails and beat-
ing the cushion. Come out and see what’s up here — 1 want
to say. I mean it’s so barren: so easy: giving advice on a
system. The moral is, if you want to help, never systematise
— not till you’re 70: and have been supple jand sympathetic
and creative and tried out all your nerves and scopes. He
died though at 45. And why does Aldous say he was an
“artist”? Art is being rid of all preacliing: things in them-
selves: the sentence in itself beautiful: multitudinous seas;
daffodils that come before the swallow dares: whereas
Lawrence would only say what proved something. I
haven’t read him of course. But in the Letters he can’t
listen beyond a point; must give advice; get you into the
system too. Hence his attraction for those who want to be
fitted: which I don’t; indeed I think it a blasphemy this
fitting of Carswells into a Lawrence system. So much more
reverent to leave them alone: nothing else to reverence
except the Carswellism of Carswell. Hence his schoolboy
tweaking and smacking of anyone offered to him: Lytton,

189

NINETEEN THIRTY-TWO

Bertie, Squire — all are suburban, unclean. His ruler com-
ing down and measuring tliem. Why all tJiis criticism of
other people? Why not some system that includes the
good? Wliat a discovery that would be — a system that
did not shut out.

Wednesday^ November 2nd

He is a rattle headed, bolt eyed young man, raw boned,
loose jointed, wlio thinks himself the greatest poet of all
time. I daresay he is — it’s not a subject that interests me
enormously at the moment. What does? My own writing
of course. I’ve just polished up the L.S. for The Times—
a good one, I think, considering the currents that sway
round that subject in The riWrofall papers. And I have
entirely remodelled my “Essay”. It’s to be an Essay-
Novel, called The Pargiters • — and it’s to take in every-
thing, sex, education, life etc: and come, with the most
powerful and agile leaps, like a chamois, across precipices
from 1880 to here and now. That’s the notion anyhow,
and I have been in such a haze and dream and intoxica-
tion, declaiming phrases, seeing scenes, as I walk up
Southampton Row that I can hardly say I have been
alive at all, since lolh October.

Everything is running of its own accord into the stream,
as with What has happened of course is that after

abstaining from the novel of fact all these years— since
igig— and N. & D. is dead — I find myself infinitely
delighting in facts for a change, and in possession of
quantities beyond counting; though I feel now and then
the tug to vision, but resist it. This is the true line, I am
sure, iifrer The Waves — The Pargiters — this is what leads
naturally on to the next stage — the essay-novel.

Monday y December igth

Yes, today I have written myself to the verge of total
extinction. Praised be I can stop and wallow in coolness
and downs and let the wheek of my mind — how I beg them

* It became The Tears.

,90 A WRITER’S DIARY

to do this — cool and slow and stop altogether. I shall
take up Flush again, to cool myself. By Heaven, I have
written 60,320 words since October nth. I think this
must be far the quickest going of any of my books: comes
far ahead of Orlando or the Lighthouse. But then those
60 thousand will have to be sweated and dried into 30 or
40 thousand — a great grind to come. Never mind. I have
secured the outline and fixed a shape for the rest. I feel,
for the first time, No I mustn’t take risks crossing the road,
till the book is done. ...

Yes, I will be free and entire and absolute and mistress
of my life by October ist, 1933. Nobody shall come here
on their terms; or haul me off to them on theirs. Oh and
I shall write a poet’s book next. This one, however,
releases such a torrent of fact as I did not know I had in
me. I must have been observing and collecting these
20 years — since Jacob's Room anyhow. Such a wealth of
things seen present themselves that I can’t choose even —
hence 60,000 words all about one paragraph. What I
must do is to keep control; and not be too sarcastic; and
keep the right degree of freedom and reserve. But oh how
easy this writing is compared with The Waves\ I wonder
what the degree of carat-gold is in the two books. Of
course this is external: but there’s a good deal of gold —
more than I’d thought — in externality. Anyhow, “what
care I for my goose feather bed? I’m off to join the raggle
lagglc gipsies oh!” The gipsies, I say: not Hugh Walpole
and Priestley — no. In truth The Pargiters is first cousin to
Orlando^ though the cousin is the flesh: Orlando taught me
the trick of it. Now — oh but I must stop for 10 days at
least — no 14 — if not 21 days — now I must compose the
1 880-1 goo chapter, which needs skill. But I like applying
skill I own. I am going to polish off my jobs: and tomorrow
we go. A very fruitful varied and I think successful
autumn — thanl^ partly to my tired heart: so I could
impose terms: and I have never lived in such a race, such
a dream, such a violent impulsion and compulsion —
scarcely seeing anything but The Pargiters.

NINETEEN THIRTY-TWO
RODMELL

I9>

Friday^ December 23rd

This is not the first day of the New Year: but the dis-
crepancy may be forgiven.* I must write off my dejected
rambling misery — ha\ing just read over tlic 30,000 words
oi Flush and come to the conclusion that they won’t do.
Oh what a wa.stc — what a bore! Four months of work and
heaven knows how much reading— not of an exalted kind
either — and I can’t sec Iiow to make anything of it. It’s
not the right subject for that length: it’s too slight and too
serious. Much good in it but would have to be much better.
So here I am two days before Christmas pitched into
one of my grey welters. True, it’s partly over writing The
largiUrs. But I can’t get back into Flush ever, I feel: and
L. will be disappointed; and the money loss too— that’s a
bore. I took it up impetuously after The Haves by way of a
change: no forethought in me: and so got landed: it would
need a month’s hard work — and even then I doubt it. In
that Umc I might have done Dryden and Pope. And I’m
thus led to begin— no to end- the year with a doleful
plaint. It IS blazing hot; like spring, with the bees on the
Mowers. Never mind; this is not a reverse of the first order
— not at all.

® separate manu-
following cntr>- arc at the beginning of the

193 3

This is in fact the last day of 1932, but I am so tired of
polishing ofT Flush— such a pressure on the brain is caused
by doing ten pages daily — that I am taking a morning off
and shall use it here, in my lazy way, to sum up the whole
of life . . . the dew pond is filling; the goldfish are dead;
it is a clear pale blue eyed winter’s day; and and — and my
thoughts turn with excitement to The Pargiiers, for I long
to feel my sails blow out and to be careering with Elvira,
Maggie and the rest over the whole of human life. And
indeed I cannot sum this up, being tired in my head.

January 3rd, 1933

This is a little out of place,* but then so am 1 . We arc up
for Angelica’s party last night and I have half an hour to
spend before shooting in the new Lanchestcr (not ours —
one lent) back to Rodmell. We have been there just short
of one fortnight and I ate myself into the heart of print
and solitude — so as to adumbrate a headache. And to
wipe off the intensity of concentration trying to re-write
that abominable dog Flush in 13 days, so as to be free— oh
heavenly freedom — to write The Pargiiers^ I insisted upon
a night of chatter.

Thursday, January 3th

I am so delighted with my own ingenuity in having
after only ten years or so, made myself, in five minutes, a
perfect writing board, with pen tray attached, so that I
can’t ever again fly into a fury bereft of ink and pen at the
most critical moment of a writer’s life and sec my sudden
sentence dissipate itself all for lack of a pen handy — and
besides I’m so glad to be quit of page 100 of Flush — this
the third time of writing that Whitechapel scene, and I
doubt if it’s worth it, that I can’t help disporting myself

^ This entry is at the end of the 193^ manuscript book.

192

NINETEEN THIRTY. THREE 193

on iliis free blue page, which thank God in heaven, needs
no re-writing. It is a wet misty day: my windows out liere
are all fog ... if only because I’m in sublime reading
fetde: seriously I believe that the strain of The Waves
W'eakened my concentration for months — and then all
that article compressing for the C.R. I am now' at the
height of my powers in that line, and have read, w'ith close
and powerful attention, some 12 or 15 books since I came
here. What a joy— what a sense as of a Rolls Royce
engine once more purring its 70 miles an hour in my
brain. ... I am also encouraged to read by the feeling
that 1 am on the flood of creativeness in The Pargiters —
what a liberation that gives one — as if everything added
to that torrent — all books become fluid and sw’cll the
stream. But I daresay this is a sign only that I’m doing
what is rather superficial and hasty and eager. I don’t
know. I’ve another week of Flush here, and then shall
^me to grips with my 20 years in one chapter problem.
I visualise this book now as a curiously uneven time
sequence— a series of great balloons, linked by straight
narrow passages of narrative. I can take liberties W'ith
the reprwentational form which I could not dare when I
wrote Might and Day — a book that taught me much, bad
though it may be.

Sunday^ Januaiy i^th

I have come out here, our last morning, to write letters,
so, naturally, I write this book. But then I haven’t written
a line ^ese three weeks— only typed Flush, which. Heaven
be praised, 1 finished”, almost without inverted commas,
y^terday. Ah but my writing Flush has been gradually
shoved out, as by a cuckoo bom in the nest, by The
Pargiters. How odd the mind’s functions are! About a week
ago, I began the making up of scenes— unconsciously:
saying phrases to myself; and so, for a week. I’ve sat here,
sunng at the typewriter and speaking aloud phrases of
T ^ . This becomes more and more maddening.

It will however all be run off in a few days, when I let
myself write again. I am reading PameU. Yes; but this

J94

A WRITER'S DIARY

scene making increases the rate of my heart with uncom-
fortable rapidity. ^Vhilc I was forcing myself to do Flush
my old headache came back — for the first time this
autumn. Why should the Ps. make my heart jump; why
should Flush stiffen the back of my neck? \Vhat connection
has the brain with the body? Nobody in Harley Street
could explain, yet the symptoms arc purely physical and
as distinct as one book is from the other.

Thursday^ January igth

It must be confessed that The Pargiters are like cuckoos
in my nest — which should be Flush. I have only 50 pages
to correct and send to Mabel; and these cursed scenes and
dialogues will go on springing up in my head; and after
correcting one page, I sit mooning for 20 minutes. 1 dare-
say this will increase the blood pressure when I come to
write. But it is a tiresome bewildering distraction now,

Saturday^ January 21st

Well, Flush lingers on and I cannot despatch him.
Thai’s the sad truth. I always sec something I could press
lighter or enwrap more completely. There’s no trifling
with words — can’t be done: not \yhcn they’re to stand
“forever”. So I am battening down my Pargiters^ say till
Wednesday — it shan’t be later, I swear. And now I grow
doubtful of the value of those figures. I’m afraid of the
didactic: perhaps it was only that spurious passion that
made me rattle away before Christmas. Anyhow I enr
Joyed it immensely and shall again — oh to be free, ih
fiction, making up my scenes again — however discreetly.
Such is my cry this very fine cold January morning.

Thursday^ January 26th

Well, Flush is, I swear, despatched. Nobody can say
1 don’t take trouble with my little stories. And now,
having bent my mind for 5 weeks sternly this way, I naust
unbend it the other — the Pargiter way. No critic ever gives

NINETEEN THIRTY-THREE 195

full weight to the desire of the mind for change. Talk of
being manysided — naturally one must go the other way.
Now if I ever had the wits to go into the Shakespeare
business I believe one w’ould find the same law there —
tragedy comedy and so on. Looming behind The Pargiters
I can just sec the shape of pure poetry beckoning me. But
The Pargiters is a delightful solid possession to be enjoyed
tomorrow. How bad I shall find it.

Thursday^ February 2nd

Not that I much want a move in March, with The
Pargiters on my hands. I am going however to work largely,
spaciously, fruitfully on that book. Today I finished—
rather more completely than usual — revising the first
chapter. I’m leaving out the interchapters— compacting
them in the te.xt: and project an appendix of dates. A good
idea? And Galsworthy died two days ago, it suddenly
struck me, walking just now by the Serpentine after
c^ling on Mrs. \V. (who’s been dying — is recovering)
with the gulls opening tlieir scimitars— masses of gulls.
Galsworthy s dead: and A. Bennett told me he simply
couldn t stick Galsworthy. Had to praise Jack’s books to
Mrs. G. But I could say what I liked against Galsworthy.
That stark man lies dead.

Saturday^ March 25th

It is an utterly corrupt society I have just remarked,
speaking in the person of Elvira Pargitcr, and I will take
nothing that it can give me etc etc: Now, us Virginia
Woolf, I have to write— oh dear me what a bore — to the
Vice Chancellor of Manchester University and say that
I refuse to be made a Doctor of Letters. And to Lady
Simon, who has been urgent in the matter and asks us to
stay. Lord knows how I’m to put Elvira’s language into
irolite journalese. What an odd coincidence! that real life
should provide precisely the situation I was writing about.

I hardly know which I am, or where: Virginia or Elvira*
m the Pargiters or outside. We dined with Susan

,96 A WRITER’S DIARY

Lawrence two nights ago. A Mrs. Stocks of Manchester
University was there. How delighted my husband ^vill be
to give you your degree in July! she began. And had
rattled off a great deal about the delight of Manchester
in seeing me honoured, before I had to pluck up courage
and say; “But I won’t take it.” After that there was a
general argument, with the Nevinsons, (Evelyn Sharp)
Susan Lawrence etc. They all said they would take a
degree from a University though not an honour from the
state. They made me feel a little silly, priggish and per-
haps extreme: but only superficially. Nothing would
induce me to connive at all that humbug. Nor would it
give me, even illicitly, any pleasure. I really believe that
Ncssa and I — she went with me and used my arguments
about the silliness of lionours for women — are witliout the
publicity sense. Now for the polite letters. Dear Vice
Chancellor

Tuesday^ March 28th

The polite letters have been sent. So far I have [not]
had, nor could have had, any answer. No, thank Heaven,
I need not emerge from my fiction in July to have a tuft
of fur put on my head. It is the finest spring ever known-
soft, hot, blue, misty.

Thursdayy April 6th

Oh I’m so tired! I’ve written myself out over The
Pargitersy this last lap. I’ve brought it down to Elvira in
bed — the scene I’ve had in my mind ever so many months,
but I can’t write it now. It’s the turn of the book. It needs
a great shove to swing it round on its hinges. As usual,
doubts rush in. I get it all too quick, too thin, too surface
bright? Well, I’m too jaded to crunch it up, if that’s so;
and so shall bury it for a month — till we’re back from
Italy perhaps; and write on Goldsmitli etc. meanwhile.
Then seize on it fresh and dash it off in June, July, August,
September. Four months should finish the first draft —
100,000 words, I think. 50,000 words written in 5 months
— my record.

»97

NINETEEN THIRTY-THREE
Thursday, April i^th

No I have worked myself too dry this time. Tliere is not
one idea left in the orange. But we go today and I shall
sun, with only a few books. No, I will not write; I will not
see people. A little nip from Gissing in the T.L.S. winch I
must answer. But indeed I can’t find words — use the
wrong ones — that’s my state: the familiar state after these
three months writing — what fun that book is to me!

Tuesday, April 25th

That’s all over — our ten days: and I wrote daily,
almost, at Goldsmith — don’t much sec the point of my
Goldsmiths and so on — and read Goldsmith, and so on.
Yes: I should now be correcting Flush proofs — I doubt
that little book to some extent: but I’m in a doubting
mood: the scrambled mood of transience, for on Friday
5th we go to Siena; so I can’t settle and make up my story,
in which lies permanence. And as usual I want to seethe
myself in something new— to break the mould of habit
entirely and get that escape which Italy and the sun and
the lounging and the indifference of all that to all this
brings about. I rise, like a bubble out of a bottle. . . .

But The Pargiters. I think this will be a terrific affair.
I must be bold ^nd adventurous. I want to give the whole
of the present society — nothing less: facts as well as the
vision. And to combine them both. I mean, The Waves
g:oing on simultaneously with Might and Day. Is this pos-
sible? At present I have assembled 50,000 words of “real”
life: now in the next 50 I must somehow comment; Lord
knows how — while keeping the march of events. The
figure of Elvira is the difficulty. She may become too
dominant. She is to be seen only in relation to other things.
This should give I think a great edge to both of the realities

this contrast. At present I think the run of events is too
fluid and too free. It reads thin: but lively. How am I to
get the depth without becoming static? But I like these
problems, and anyhow there’s a wind and a vigour in this
naturalness. It should aim at immense breadth and

,98 A WRITER’S DIARY

immense intensity. It should include satire, comedy,
poetry, narrative; and what form is to hold them all to-
gether? Should I bring in a play, letters, poems? I think I
begin to grasp the whole. And it’s to end with the press of
daily normal life continuing. And there are to be millions
of ideas but no preaching — history, politics, feminism, art,
literature — in short a summing up of all I know, feel,
laugh at, despise, like, admire, hate and so on.

Friday^ April 28th

A mere note. We got out of the car last night and began
walking down to the Serpentine. A summer evening.
Chestnuts in their crinolines, bearing tapers; grey green
water and so on. Suddenly L. bore off; and there was
Shaw, dwindled shanks, white beard; striding along. We
talked by a railing for 15 minutes. He stood with his arms
folded, very upright, leaning back: teeth gold tipped.
Just come from the dentist and “lured” out for a walk by
the weather. Very friendly. That is his art, to make one
think he likes one. A great spurt of ideas. “You forget that
an aeroplane is like a car — it bumps — VVe went over the
great wall — saw a little dim object in the distance. Of
course the tropics arc the place. The people arc the
original human beings. We are smudged copies. I caught
the Chinese looking at us with horror — that we should be
human beings! Of course the tour cost thousands: yet to
sec us you’d think we hadn’t the price of the fare to
Hampton Court. Lots of old spinsters had saved up for
years to come. Oh but my publicity! It’s terrifying. An
hour’s bombardment at every port. I made the mistake of
accepting * invitation. I found myself on a plat-

form with the whole university round me. They began
shouting Wc want Bernard Shaw. So I told them that
every man at 21 must be a revolutionary. After that of
course the police imprisoned them by dozens. I want to
write an article for the Herald pointing out what Dickens
said years ago about the folly of Parliament. Oh I could
only stand the voyage by writing. I’ve written 3 or 4

^ There U a blank here in the manuscript.

NINETEEN THIRTY-THREE 199

books. I like to give the public full weight. Books sliould
be sold by the pound. What a nice little dog. But aren’t I
keeping you and making you cold?” (touching my arm).
Two men stopped along the path to look. Off he strode
again on his dwindled legs. I said Shaw likes us. L. thinks
he likes nobody. What wiW they say of Shaw in 50 years?
He is 76 he said: too old for the tropics.

Last night — to relieve myself for a moment from cor-
recting that silly book Flush — oh what a waste of time — I
I will record Bruno ^ Valter. He is a swarthy, fattish man;
not at all smart. Not at all the “great conductor”. He is a
little Slav, a little Semitic. He is very nearly mad; that is,
he can’t get “the poison” as he called it of Hitler out of
him. “You must not think of the Jews,” he kept on saying.
“You must think of this awful reign of intolerance. You
must think of the whole state of the world. It is terrible —
terrible. That this meanness, that this pettiness, should be
possible! Our Germany, which I loved, with our tradition,
our culture. We arc now a disgrace.” Then he told us how
you can’t talk above a whisper. There arc spies cveiy'-
whcrc. He had to sit in the window of his hotel in Leipzig
a whole day, telephoning. All the time soldiers were
marching. They never stop marching. And on the wire-
less, benveen the turns, they play military music. Horrible,
horrible! He hopes for the monarchy as the only hope. He
will never go back there. His orchestra had been in exist-
ence for 150 years: but it is the spirit of the whole that is
awful. We must band together. Wc must refuse to meet
any German. We must say that tliey arc uncivilised. We
will not trade with them or play with them. We must make
them feel themselvcss outcasts — not by fighting them; by
ignoring them. Then he swept off to music. He has the
intensity — genius? — which makes him live everything he
feels. Described conducting: must know every player,

JUAN LES PINS

Tuesday^ May gth

Yes, I thought, I will make a note of that face — the face

200 A WRITER’S DIARY

of the woman stitching a very thin, lustrous green silk at a
table in the restaurant where we lunched at Vienne. She
was like fate — a consummate mistress of all the arts ofsclf-
prcser\’ation: hair rolled and lustrous; eyes so nonchalant;
nothing could startle her; there she sat stitching her green
silk with people going and coming all the time; she not
looking, yet knowing, fearing nothing; expecting nothing
— a perfectly equipped middle class Frenchwoman.

At Carpentras last night there was the little servant girl
witli honest eyes, hair brushed in a flop and one rather
black tooth. I felt that life ^vould crush her out inevitably.
Perhaps i8, not more; yet on the wheel, without hope;
poor, not weak but mastered — yet not enough mastered
but to desire furiously travel, for a moment, a car. Ah but
I am not rich, she said to me — which her cheap litdc
stockings and shoes showed anyhow. Oh how I envy you,
able to travel. You like Carpentras? But the wnd blows
ever so hard. You’ll come again? That’s the bell ringing.
Never mind. Come over here and look at this. No, I’ve
never seen anything like it. Ah yes, she always likes the
English. (“She” was the other maid, with hair like some
cactus in erection.) Yes I always like the English she said.
The odd little honest face, with the black tooth, will stay
on at Carpentras I suppose: will marry? will become one
of those stout black women who sit in the door knitting?
No: I foretell for her some tragedy: because she had
enough mind to envy us the Lanchcstcr.

PISA

Fridayy May I2tk

Yes, Shelley chose better tlian Max Beerbohm. He chose
a harbour; a bay; and his home, with a balcony, in which
Mary stood, looks out across the sea. Sloping sailed boats
were coming in this morning — a tvindy little town, of high
pink and yellow southern homes, not much changed I
suppose: very full of the breaking of waves, very much
open to the sea; and the rather desolate house standing
with the sea just in front. Shelley, I suppose, bathed.

201

NINETEEN THIRTY-THREE

walked, sat on the beach there; and Mary and Mrs.
Williams had their coffee on the balcony. I daresay the
clothes and the people were much the same. At any rate,
a very good great man’s house in its way. What is the word
for full of the sea? Can’t tliink tonight, sky high in a bed-
room at the Nettano in Pisa, much occupied by French
tourists. The Amo swimming past with the usual coffee
coloured foam. Walked in the cloisters: this is true Italy,
with the old dusty smell; people swarming in the streets;
under the — what is the word for — I think the word for a
street that has pillars is Arcade. Shelley’s house waiting
by the sea, and Shelley not coming, and Mary and Mrs.
Williams watching from die balcony and then Trclawncy
coming from Pisa and burning the body on the shore —
that’s in my mind. All the colours here arc while bluish
marble against a very light saturated sky. The tower
leaning prodigiously. Clerical beggar at the door in a
mock fantastic leather hat. The clergy walking. It was
in these cloisters — Campo Santo— that L. and I walked
21 years ago and met the Palgravcs and I tried to hide
behind the pillars. And now we come in our car; and the
Palgravcs — are they dead, or very old? Now at any rate
we have left the black country: the bald necked vulture
country with its sprinkling of redroofed villas. This is the
Italy one used to visit in a railway train with Violet
Dickinson — taking the hotel bus.

SIENA

Saturdayy May i^th

Today we saw the most beautiful of views and tlie
melancholy man. The view was like a line of poetry that
makes itself; the shaped hill, all flushed with reds and
greens; the elongated lines, cultivated every inch; old,
wild, perfectly said, once and for all: and I walked up to
a group and said What is that village? It called itself

and the woman with the blue eyes said,
“Won’t you come to my house and drink?” She was

* Blank in manuscript.

202 A WRITER’S DIARY

famished for talk. Four or five of tliem buzzed round us
and I made a Ciceronian speech about the beauty of the
country'. But I have no money to travel with, she said,
wringing her hands. We would not go to her house — a
cottage on the side of the hill: and shook hands: hers were
dusty: she wanted to keep them from me; but we all
shook hands and I wished we had gone to her house, in
the loveliest of all landscapes. Then, lunching by the
river, among the ants, we met the melancholy man. He
had five or six little fish in his hands, which he had caught
in his hands. ^Vc said it was very beautiful country; and
he said no, he preferred the town. He had been to
Florence: no, he did not like the country. He wanted to
travel, but had no money: worked at some village: no, he
did not like the country', he repeated, wth his gentle
cultivated voice: no theatres, no pictures, only perfect
beauty. I gave him 2 cigarettes; at first he refused, then
ofTered us his six or seven little fish. But wc could not
cook them at Siena, we said. No, he agreed, and so wc
parted.

It is all very well, saying one will write notes, but writing
is a very difficult art. That is one has always to select: and
I am too sleepy and hence merely run sand through my
fingers. Writing is not in the least an easy art. Thinking
what to write, it seems easy; but the thought evaporates,
runs hither and thither. Here wc arc in the noise of Siena
— the vast tunnelled arched stone town, swarmed over
by cliattcring shrieking children.

Sundayy May 14th

Yes, I am reading — skipping — the Sacred Founts about
the most inappropriate of all books for this din — sitting
by the open Nvindow, looking across heads and heads and
heads — all Siena parading in grey and pink and the cars
hooting. How finely run along those involuted threads?
I don’t. — tliat’s the answer. I let ’em break. I only mark
that the sign of a masterly writer is liis power to break his
mould callously. None of H. J.’s timid imitators have the
vigour, once they’ve spun their sentence, to smash it. He

NINETEEN THIRTY-THREE 203

has some native juice — figure: has driven his spoon deep
into some stew of his own — some swarming mLxturc.
That — his vitality — his vernacular — his pounce and grip
and swing always spring fresh upon me, if at the same
time I ask how could anyone, outside an orchis in a green-
house, fabricate such an orchid’s dream. Oh these
Edwardian ladies with pale hair, these tailored “my dear
men”! Yet compared to that vailgar old brute Creevey —
L. is here bitten by a flea — H. J. is muscular, lean. No
doubt the society of the Regent — the smell of brandy and
bones, the painted velvet Lawrence women — the general
laxity and lushness and vulgarity are here at their super-
lative. Of course the Shelleys, the Wordsworths, the
Coleridges existed on the other side of the hedge. But
when it comes gushing out of Creevey’s page, it’s for all
the world like — something between Buckingham Palace,
Brighton and the Queen’s own italic style — so uncurbed,
so weak: and how can one hope for a cure for a single
person? There’s all the dreary Lords and Ladies ogling
and overeating; and plush and gilt; and the Princess and
the Prince — I think dissolution and obesity taking hold of
the i8th Century and swelling it into a puff ball efflores-
cence. i860 is considerably more to the point.

Monday^ May 15th

This should be all description — I mean of the little
pointed green hills; and the white oxen and the poplars
and the cypresses and the sculptured shaped infinitely
musical, Rushed green land from here to Abbazia ^ — tliat
is where we went today; and couldn’t find it and asked
one after another of the charming tired peasants, but none
had been 4 miles beyond their range, until we came to the
stonebreaker and he knew. He could not stop work to
come with us, because the inspector was coming tomorrow.
And he was alone, alone, all day with no one to talk to.
So wa.s the aged Maria at the Abbazia. And she mumbled
and slipped her words, as she showed us into the huge bare
stone building; mumbled and mumbled, about the

‘ Abbazia di Antimo at Montaldno.

204 A WRITER’S DIARY

English — how beautiful they were. Arc you a Contessa?
she asked me. But she didn’t like Italian country either.
They seem stinted, dried up; like grasshoppers and with
the manners of impoverished gentle people; sad, wise,
tolerant, humorous. There was the man with the mule.
He let the mule gallop away down the road. We arc wel-
come, because we might talk; they draw round and dis-
cuss us after we’re gone. Crowds of gentle kindly boys and
girls always come about us and wave and touch their hats.
And nobody looks at the view — except us — at the Euga-
ncan, bone white, this evening; then there’s a ruddy red
farm or two; and light islands swimming here and there
in the sea of shadow — for it was very showery — then there
are the black stripes of cypresses round the farm; like fur
edges; and the poplars and the streams and the nightingales
singing and sudden gusts of orange blossom; and white
alabaster oxen with swinging chins — great flaps of white
leather hanging under their noses — and infinite emptiness,
loneliness, silence: never a new house,, or a village; but
only the vineyards and the olive trees, where they have
always been. The hills go pale blue, washed very sharp
and soft on the sky; hill after hill.

PIACENZA

Friday^ May igth

It’s a queer thing that I write a date. Perhaps in this
disoriented life one thinks, if I can say what day it is,
then . . . Three dots to signify I don’t know what I mean.
But we have been driving all day from Lerici over the
Apennines and it is now cold, clobtral, highly uncomfort-
able, in a vast galleried Italian inn, so ill provided with
chairs that now at this present moment we are squatted,
L. in a hard chair by his bed, I on the bed, in order to
take advantage of the single light which bums between us.
L. is writing directions to the Press. I am about to read
Goldoni.

Lerici is hot and blue and we had a room with a balcony*

NINETEEN THIRTY-THREE 205

There were Misses and Mothers — misses wlio had lost all
chance of life long ago, and could with a gentle frown, a
frown of mild sadness, confront a whole meal — arranged
for the English — in entire silence, dressed as if for cold
Sunday supper in Wimbledon. Then there’s the retired
Anglo-Indian, who t<ikes shall we say Miss Toutchet for a
walk, a breezy red faced man, very fond of evensong at
the Abbey. She goes to the Temple; where “my brother”
has rooms. Et cetera. Et cetera. Of the Apennines I have
noting to say — save that up on the top they’re like the
inside of a green umbrella: spine after spine: and clouds
caught on the point of the slick. And so down to Parma;
hot, stony, noisy; with shops that don’t keep maps; and
so on along a racing road, to Piacenza, at which we find
ourselves now at 6 minutes to 9 p.m. This of course is the
rub of travelling — this is the price paid for tlie sweep and
the freedom — the dusting of our shoes and careering off
tomorrow — and eating our lunch on a green plot beside
a deep cold stream. It will be all over this day week —
comfort — discomfort; and the zest and rush that no
engagement, hours, habits give. Then we shall take them
up again with more than the zest of travelling.

Sunday, May 21st

To write to keep off sleep — that is the exalted mission
of toiught— tonight sitting at the open window of a second-
rate inn in Draguignan — with plane trees outside, the
usual single noted bird, the usual loudspeaker. Everybody
in France motors on Sunday; tlien sleeps it off at night.
The hotel keepers are gorged and scarcely stop playing
cards. But Grasse was too plethoric — we came on here
late. We leave here early. I dip into Creevey; L. into
Golden Bough. We long for bed. This is tlie tax for travelling
—these sleepy uncomfortable hotel nights— sitting on
hard chairs under the lamp. But the seduction works as
wc start — to Aix tomorrow — so home. And “home” be-
times a magnet, for I can’t stop making up the P’s: can’t
live without that intoxicant— though this is the loveliest

ao6 A WRITER’S DIARY

and most distracting alternative. But I’m full of holiday
and want work — ungrateful that I am! — and yet I want
the hills near Fabbria too and the hills near Siena — but
no other hills — not these black and green violent mono-
tonous southern hills. We saw poor Lawrence’s Phoenix
picked out in coloured pebbles at Vence today among all
the fretted lace tombs.

Tuesday^ May 23rd

1 have just said to myself if it were possible to write,
those white sheets would be the very thing, not too large
or too small. But I do not wish to write, except as an
irritant. This is the position. I sit on L.’s bed; he in the
only armchair. People tap up and dowm on the pavement.
This is Vienne. It is roasting hot — hotter and hotter it
gels — and wc arc driving through France; and it’s Tues-
day and wc cross on Friday and this strange interval of
travel, of sweeping away from habitation and habits will
be over. On and on wc go — through Aix, through
Avignon, on and on, under arches of leaves, over bare
sandy roads, under grey black hills with castles, beside
vines: and I’m thinking of the Pargiters: and L. is driving;
and when wc come to poplars wc get out and lunch by the
river; and then on; and take a cup of tea by the river:
fetch our letters, Icam that Lady Cynthia Mosley is dead:
picture tlie scene; wonder at death; and drowse and doze
In the heat, and decide to sleep here — hotel de la Poste;
and read another letter and learn that the Book Society
will probably take Flush and speculate what wc shall do
if wc have £1^000 or £2,000 to spend. And what would
these little burghers of Vienne, who are drinking coffee,
do with that sum, I ask? The girl is a typist; the young men
clerks. For some reason they start discussing hotels at
Lyons, I tliink; and they haven’t a penny piece between
them; and all the men go into the urinal, one sees their
legs; and the Morocco soldiers go in their great cloaks;
and tlie children play ball and people stand lounging and
everything becomes highly pictorial, composed, legs in

NINETEEN THIRTY-THREE 207

p^ticular — the odd angles they make: and the people
dining in the hotel; and the queer air it all has, since
we shall leave early tomorrow, of something designing
Vienne on my mind, significantly. Now the draw of home,
and freedom and no packing tells on us — oh to sit in an
arm chair; and read and not have to ask for Eau Mineral,
with which to brush our teeth!

52 Tavistock Square

Tuesday^ May ^otk

Yes, but of all things coming home from a holiday is
undoubtedly the most damned. Never was there such
aimlessness, such depression. Can’t read, write or think.
There’s no climax here. Comfort yes: but the coffee’s not
so good as I expected. And my brain is extinct— literally
hasn’t the power to lift a pen. What one must do is to set it

my macliinc I mean — in the rails and give it a push.
Lord — how I pushed yesterday to make it start running
along Goldsmith again. There’s that half finished article.
Lord Salisbury said something about dished up speeches
being like the cold remains of last night’s supper. I see
white grease on the pages of my article. Today it’s a little
warmer— tepid meat: a slab of cold mutton. It’s coldish,
cmllish here* Yes, but I hear the clock tick and suspect,
though I must not look, that the wheels are just beginning
to turn on the rails. We go to Monk’s House for Whitsun,
which is Monday — the suburban, the diminished Monk’s
House. No, I can’t look at The Pargiters. It’s an empt\'
snail shell. And I’m empty with a cold slab of a brain.
Never mind. I shall dive head foremost into The Pargiters.
And now I shall make my mind run along Italian—
what’s his name — Goldoni. A few verbs I think.

It occurs to me that this state, my depressed state, is the
state in which most people usually are.

Wednesday y May 31st

I think I have now got to the point where I can write

2o8 a WRITER’S DIARY

for four months straight ahead at The Pargiters. Oh the

relief — the physical relief! I feel as if I
And I am at once could hardly any longer keep back-
called out to draw that my brain is being tortured by
lots in our Derby always butting against a blank wall —
sweepstake. No I mean Flush, Goldsmith, motoring
favourite this through Italy. Now, tomorrow, I mean
year, they say. jq j-yn ^ off. And suppose only nonsense

comes? The thing is to be venturous,
bold, to take every possible fence. One might introduce
plays, poems, letters, dialogues: must get the round, not
only the flat. Not the theory only. And conversation:
argument. How to do that will be one of the problems. 1
mean intellectual argument in the form of art: I mean how
give ordinary waking Arnold Bennett life the form of art?
These arc rich hard problems for my four months ahead.
And I don’t know my own gifts at the moment. I’m dis-
oriented completely after four weeks* holiday — no three —
but tomorrow we go to Rodmcll again. And I must fill up
the chinks with reading — and don’t want to settle down to

books Well, now I have to go up to Murray about my

dress: and there’s Ethel round the comer; but no letters;
disorganisation from Whitsun again. I thought, driving
through Richmond last night, something very profound
about the synthesis of my being: how only writing com-
poses it: how nothing makes a whole unless I am writing:
now I have forgotten what seemed so profound. The
rhododendron like coloured glass mounds at Kcw. Oh the
agitation, oh the discomfort of this mood.

Very well: the old Pargiters are beginning to run off:
and I say oh to be done. I mean, writing is effort: writing
is despair: and yet of course t’other day in the grilling heat
at Rodmcll I admit that the perspective — this I thii^ was
something like my profound thought at Richmond — shifts
into focus: yes: the proportion is right: though I at the top
suffer strain; suffer, as this morning, grim despair and shall
O Lord when it comes to re-writing suffer an intensity of
anguish ineffable (the word only means one can’t express
it); holding the thing; — all the things — the innumerable
things — together.

209

NINETEEN THIRTY-THREE
Monday, July loth

Bella » arrived and knocked her head upon the window
of the car. She cut her nose and was dazed. And then I
was in *‘one of my states” — how violent, how acute — and
walked in Regents Park in black misery and had to sum-
mon my cohorts in the old way to see me through, which
they have done more or less. A note made to testify to my
own ups and downs; many of which go unrecorded though
they arc less violent I think than they used to be. But how
familiar it was— stamping along the road, with gloom and
pain constricting my heart: and the desire for death, in the
old way, all for two I daresay careless words.

Thursday, July 20th

1 am again in full flood with The Pargiters after a week
of very scanty pages. The trouble is to get the meat pressed
in: I mean to keep the rhythm and convey the meaning. It
tends more and more, I think— at any rate the E.M. scenes
— to drama. I think tlic next lap ought to be objective,
realistic, in the manner of Jane Austen; carrying the story
on all the time.

Saturday, August 12th

So naturally after Mrs. Nef I was so tired— I shivered
and shook. I went to bed for 2 days and slept I daresay
7 hours, visiting the silent realms again. It strikes me —
what arc these sudden fits of complete exhaustion? I come
in here to write: <^’t even finish asentcnce; and am pulled
underj now is this some odd efibrt^ the subconscious pul-
ling me down into her? I’ve been reading Faber on New-
man; compared his account of a nervous breakdown; the
refusal of some part of the mechanism; is that what hap-
pens to me? Not quite. Because I’m not evading anything.

I long to write The Pargiters. No. I tJiink the effort to live
m two spheres: the novel; and life; is a strain, Nefi almost
break me because they strain me so far from the other

* Lady Southom, sister of L. W.

210

A WRITER’S DIARY

world; I only want walking and perfectly spontaneous
childish life with L. and the accustomed when I’m writing
at full tilt: to have to behave with circumspection and
decision to strangers wrenches me into another region;
hence the collapse.

Wednesday^ August i6th

And owing to Sir Alan Cobham’s flying and Angelica
and Julian and fetching the boat I had another headache
and bed and didn’t sec Ethel, but heard her voice and
have 6 pages on the subject this morning, and didn’t see
the Wolves and am out here again ^ rubbing at The
Pargiters and thinking Oh Lord how am I ever going to
pull all that into shape. What a tremendous struggle it’ll
be! Never mind. 1 want to discuss Form, having been
reading Turgenev. (But how my hand trembles after one
of these headaches — can’t lay hands on words or pens
exactly — the habit has been broken.)

Form, then, is the sense that one thing follows another
rightly. This is partly logic. T. wrote and re-wrote. To
clear the truth of the unessential. But Dostoievsky would
say that everything matters. But one can’t read D. again.
Now Shakespeare was constrained in form by the stage.
(T. says one must find a new form for the old subject: but
here, I suppose, uses the word differently). The essential
thing in a scene is to be preserved. How do you know what
this is? How do we know if the D. form is better or worse
than the T.? It seems less permanent. T.’s idea that the
writer states the essential and lets the reader do the rest.
D. to supply the reader with every possible help and
suggestion. T. reduces the possibilities. The difficulty about
criticism is that it is so superficial. The writer has gone so
much deeper. T. kept a diary for Bozarov: wrote every-
thing from his point of view. We have only 250 short pages.
Our criticism is only a birds eye view of the pinnacle of an
iceberg. The rest under water. One might begin it in tins
way. The article might be more broken, less composed
than usual.

* In her workroom at the end of Monk’s House garden.

31 I

NINETEEN THIRTY-THREE
Thursday^ August 24th

A week ago, on Friday to be precise, having got my
mind again, I dipped into The Pargiters and determined
to sweat it bare of flesh before going on, accumulating
more scenes. I am re-arranging too, all the first part, so as
to bring it together. The death happens in the first chapter
now. I think I shall reduce the size by half; it is however a
little bare and jerky at present. Moreover it is rather a
rush and a strain. I have just killed Mrs. P.: and can’t
shoot ahead to Oxford. For the truth is these little scenes
embroil one, just as in life; and one can’t switch off to a
diflferent mood all in a second. It seems to me that the
realness of the beginning is complete. I have a good excuse
for poe^ in the second part, if I can take it. Rather an
interesting e.\pcrimcnt — if I could sec the same thing
from two different views. And now I have spent the morn-
ing reading the Confession of Arsenc Houssayc left here
yesterday by Clive. What a vast fertility of pleasure books
hold for me! I went in and found the table laden with
books. I looked in and sniffed them all. I could not resist
carrying this one off and broaching it. I think I could
happily live here and read forever.

Saturday y September 2nd

Suddenly in the night 1 thought of Here and Mow as a
title for the Pargiters. I think it better. It shows what I’m
after and does not compete with the Herries Saga, the
Forsyte Saga and so on. I have now done the first part; I
mean compressed it, shall, I think, compress Eleanor’s day,
and then what? The rest docs not admit of much com-
pression. I think I have reduced it to 80,000 words per-
haps: but it seems to me there must be another 40, to
come. 80 plus 40 equals 120,000. If so it will be the longest
of my little brood — longer than Night and Day I imagine.

Tuesday, September 26th

Why not, one of these days, write a fantasy on the theme

212 A WRITER’S DIARY

of Crabbe? — a biographical fantasy — an experiment in
biography.

I had so much of the most profound interest to write
here — a dialogue of the soul \vith the soul — and I have
let it all slif) — why? Because of feeding the goldfoh, of
looking at the new pond, of playing bowls. Nothing re-
mains now. I forget what it was about. Happiness. The
perfect day, which was yesterday. And so on. Now I began
the morning by telephoning corrections of Twelfth Night,
to the N.S.\ put in a comma, take out semi-colon; and so
on. Then I come out here, having seen the carp, and write
Turgenev.

Monday, October 2nd

It’s October now; and we have to go to Hastings Con-
ference tomorrow and Wednesday, to Vita, then back to
London. I opened this in order to make one of my self-
admonishments previous to publishing a book. Flush will
be out on Thursday and I shall be very much depressed,

I think, by the kind of praise. They’ll say it’s “charming”,
delicate, ladylike. And it will be popular. Well now I
must let this slip over me without paying it any attention.
I must concentrate on The Pargiters — or Here and Now. I
must not let myself believe that I’m simply a ladylike
prattler: for one thing it’s not true. But they’ll all say so.
And I shall very much dislike the popular success of Flush.
No, I must say to myself, this is a mere wisp, a veil of water;
and so create, hardly, fiercely, as I feel now more able to
do than ever before.

Sunday, October 2gth

No, my head is too tired to go on with Bobby and
Elvira — they’re to meet at St. Paul’s — this morning. I
wish I could get it full and calm and unconscious. This
last is difficult, owing to Flush, owing to the perpetual
little spatter of comment that keeps me awake. Yesterday
the Granta said I was now defunct. Orlando, Waves, Flush
represent the death of a potentially great writer. This is

NINETEEN THIRTY-THREE 213

only a rain drop, I mean the snub some Ullie pimpled
undergraduate likes to administer, just as he would put a
frog in one’s bed: but then there’s all the letters and the
requests for pictures — so many that, foolishly perhaps, I
wrote a sarcastic letter to the A*.5. — thus procuring more
rain drops. This metaphor shows how tremendously
important unconsciousness is when one writes. But let me
remember that fashion in literature is an inevitable thing;
also that one must grow and change; also that I have, at
last, laid hands upon my philosophy of anonymity. My
letter to the J/.S. is the crude public statement of a part of
it. How odd last winter’s revelation was! freedom; which
now I find makes it quite easy for me to refuse Sibyl’s
invitations, to take life much more strongly and steadily.
I will not be famous”, *‘^cat”. I will go on adventuring,
changing, opening my mind and my eyes, refusing to be
stamped and stereotyped. The thing is to free one’s self: to
let it find its dimensions, not be impeded. And though this
as usual is only a pot shot, there is a great deal of substance
m it. October has been a bad month; but might have been
much worse without my philosophy.

Thursday^ December yth

I was walking through Leicester Square— how far from
China— just now when I read ‘‘Death of Noted Novelist”
on the posters. And I thought of Hugh ^Valpolc. But it is
Stella Benson. Then why write anything, immediately?

I did not know her; but have a sense of those fine patient
eyes: the weak voice; the cough; the sense of oppression.
She sat on terrace with me at Rodmell. And now, so
quickly, it is gone, what might have been a friendship,
frusty and patient and very sincere — I think of her; try-
ing to cut through, in one of those difficult evenings, to
some deeper layer— certainly we could have reached it,
given the chance. I’m glad I stopped her at the door as
she got into her little car and asked her to call me Vir-
ginia— to write to me. And she said: ‘‘There’s nothing I
should like better.” But it’s like the quenching of some-
thing — her death out there in China; and I sitting here

214 A WRITER’S DIARY

and writing about her and so fugitive and yet so true; and
no more to come. How mournful the afternoon seems,
with the newspaper carts(?) dashing up Kingsway,
“Death of Noted Novelist” on the placard. A very fine
steady mind: mucli suficring; suppressed; — there seems
to be some sort of reproach to me in her death, as in
K. M.’s. I go on; and they cease. Why? NVhy not my name
on the posters? And I have a feeling of the protest each
might make: gone with their work unfinished— each so
suddenly. Stella was 41. “I am going to send you my
book” and so on. A dreary island she lived on, talking to
colonels. A curious feeling, when a writer like S. B. dies,
that one’s response is diminished: Here and Now won’t be
lit up by her: it’s life lessened. My effusion — what I send
out — less porous and radiant — as if the thinking stuff were
a web that were fertilised only by other people’s {her that
is) thinking it too: now lacks life.

Sunday^ December lyth

I finished part 4 of Here and Now yesterday and there-
fore indulge in a contemplative morning. To freshen my
memory of the war, I read some old diaries.

1934

Tuesday^ January i6th

I have let all this time — three weeks at Monk’s — slip
because I was there so divinely happy and pressed with
ideas — another full flood of Pargiters or Here and Now (odd
that Goldie’s letter mentions that — The leaves is also lierc
and now — I had forgotten). So I never wrote a word of
farewell to the year; not a word describing the Keynes
and the Jones; nothing about the walks I had ever so far
into the downs; or the reading — Marvell of an evening,
and the usual trash.

Sundayj February i8th

And I began Here and Now again this morning, Sunday,
at the point where I left off all but three weeks ago for my
headache. Here I note that from two to three weeks is the
right space. It has not gone cold, as after six weeks: I still
carry it in my mind, and can sec how to revise. It has gone
— the talk during the Raid — running all over the place,
because I was tired; now I must press together; get into
the mood and start again. I want to raise up the magic
world all round me and live strongly and quietly there
for sbe weeks. The difficulty is the usual one — how to
adjmt the two worlds. It is no good getting violently
excited: one must combine.

Tuesday^ April iph

So jaded am I after last night that I cannot add a word
to my Sickert or make out a sketch of the last chapters of
Here and Now. A liigh price to pay for a hurried dinner at
the Hutches: racing to Macbeth; talking to Dodo Mac-

naghten; then to Sir Fred Pollock on the stage of Sadlere
Wells.

An idea about Shakespeare.

That the play demands coming to the surface — hence

ai5 H

2i6 a WRITER’S DIARY

insists upon a reality which the novel need not have, but
perhaps should have contact with the surface, coming to
the top. Tliis is working out my theory of the different
levels in writing and how to combine them: for I begin to
think the combination necessary. This particular relation
with the surface is imposed on the dramatist of necessity:
how far did it influence Shakespeare? Idea that one could
^vo^k out a theory of fiction etc. on these lines; how many
levels attempted, whether kept to or not.

Wednesday^ May gtli

This, the gth May, was our last day and fine. So we saw
Wanvickshirc — but I’ve been reading the Monologue and
note how oddly another style infects — at its best: thick
green, thick leaves, stubby yellow stone houses and a fine
sprinkling of Elizabethan cottages. All this led very har-
moniously to Stratford on Avon; and all crabbers be
damned — it is a fine, unsclfconscious to\vn, mixed, witli
i8th Century and the rest all standing cheek by jowl. All
the flowers were out in Shakespeare's garden. “That was
where his study windows looked out when he wrote The
Tempest," said the man. And perhaps it was true. Anyhow
it was a great big house, looking straight at the large
windows and the grey stone of the school chapel, and when
the clock struck, that was the sound Shakespeare heard.
I cannot without more labour than my roadrunning mind
can compass describe the queer impression of sunny im-
personality. Yes, everything seemed to say, this was
Shakespeare’s, had he sat and walked; but you won’t find
me, not exactly in the flesh. He is serenely absent —
present; both at once; radiating round one; yes; in the
flowers, in tlie old hall, in the garden; but never to be
pinned down. And we went to the church and there was
the florid foolish bust, but what I had not reckoned for
was the worn simple slab, turned the wrong way, Kind
Friend for Jesus* sake forbear — again he seemed to be all
air and sun smiling serenely; and yet down there one foot
from me lay the little bones that had spread over the world
this vast illumination. Yes, and then we walked round the

NINETEEN THIRTY-FOUR 217

church and all is simple and a little worn; the river slip-
ping past the stone wall, with a red breadth from some
flowering tree, and the edge of the turf unspoilt, soft and
green and muddy and two casual nonchalant swans. The
church and the school and the house are all roomy
spacious places, resonant, sunny today, and in and out
^ — yes, an impressive place; still living, and
then the little bones lying there, wliich have created: to
think of writing The Tempest looking out on that garden:
what a rage and storm of thought to have gone over any
mind; no doubt the solidity of the place was comfortable.
No doubt he saw the cellars with serenity. And a few
scented American girls and a good deal of parrot prattle
from old gramophone discs at the birthplace, one taking
up the story from the other. But isn’t it odd, the caretaker
at New Place agreed, that only one genuine signature of
Shakespeare’s is known; and all the rest, books, furniture,
pictures etc. has completely vanished? Now I think
Shakespeare was very happy in this, tliat there was no
impediment of fame, but his genius flowed out of him and
is still there, in Stratford. They were acting As Ton Like It
I think in tlie theatre.

Duflers the biographers not to make more hum and
melody out of New Place. I could, so I think. For the man
told us that after the great grand-daughter’s death there
was a sale, and why shouldn’t some of his things, he said,
be lost, put away and come to light? Also, Queen H. Maria,
Charles I’s queen, stayed there at New Place with the
grand-daughtcr(?) which shows how substantial it must
have been. That he told us, and I had never heard. And
he said Gaskell, the clergyman, had the original house,
which stretched across the garden almost to the chapel,
pulled down because people bothered him, asking to see
Shakespeare’s house. And there (between the wndow
and the wall) was the room he died in. A mulberry reputes
to be the scion of the tree that grew outside Shakespeare’s
window. Great cushions of blue, yellow, white flowers in
the garden, which is open, so that the living go on walking
and sitting there.

‘ Word illegible.

2i8 a WRITER’S DIARY

Friday, May i 8 th

I broke ofT, after sticking my Irish papers into the old
book, and felt I suppose a little shiver. Can’t be anything
I said to myself after all that holiday; but it was — the flu.
So I had to resign all ideas — all flood of PargiUrs and the
glorious and difiicult end of that book: all was blotted by
the damp sponge; and now it is precisely a week since I
\vcnt to bed, and here we are for Whitsun at Monk’s.
What’s more amazing is that I write this with a gold
Waterman, and have some thoughts of supplanting steel
Woolworth. It is a sunny voluptuous day, the birds all
rasping on their nests, I suppose, and cawing on the trees
and early in the morning giving loud and continued
bursts of songs to which I lie listening. I hear L. going
about the garden with Percy. All is calm and profoundly
comfortable, owing to the absence for ever even in the
background of grumbling Nelly and her replacement by
the steady silent unselfish Mabel. Yes, we do without a
char; we arc free, serene, matter of fact, oh wliat a relief!
So if I can pull my head out of the bog, I may go back on
Tuesday to the three months immersion. But I take a day
or two more to rest myself. How infinitely modest and dis-
illusioned and without ambition of any sort 1 became, all
because of influenza. Couldn’t believe that anyone would
come and see me, let alone that I could ever again string
a dozen words. Now self confidence, conceit, the blessed
illusion by which we live begin to return; very gently.
Smooth serenity is the first stage which I will not interrupt
by writing.

Tuesday, May 22nd

At last today, which is Tuesday, after striking the match
on the box despairingly, stcrilcly— oh I was so overcome
with rigidity and nothingness — a little flame has come.
Perhaps I’m off. This refers to the devilish difficulty of
starting Part 7 again after the ’flu. Elvira and George, or
John, talking in her room. I’m still miles outside them, but
I think I got into the right tone of voice this morning. I

NINETEEN THIRTY-FOUR 219

make this note by way of warning. What is important now
is to go very slowly; to stop in the middle of the flood;
never to press on; to lie back and let the soft subconscious
world become populous; not to be urging foam from my
lips. There’s no hurry. Tve enough money to last a year.
If this book comes out next June year it’s time enough.
The last chapters must be so rich, so resuming, so weaving
together that I can only go on by letting my mind brood
every morning on the whole book. Tlierc’s no longer any
need to forge ahead, as the narrative part is over. What I
want is to enrich and stabilise. This last chapter must
equal in length and importance and volume the first book:
and must in fact give the other side, the submerged side
of that. I shan’t, I think, re-read; I shall summon it back
— the tea-party, the death, Oxford and so on, from my
memory. And as the whole book depends on bringing this
off, I must be very leisurely and patient and nurse my
rather creaking head and dandle it with French and so on
as cunningly as possible.

Monday, June nth

That hopeful page reads rather too credulous now, since
I went back and again on Friday following shivered, and
ached, was stiff as a rod, talking to Elizabeth Bowen: loi :
bed: influenza: and so lay all that week, till last Sunday
to be accurate: and then went to Rodmell; and there
began the chapter again and had a sudden ftise of ideas
and then there was the opera, the nightingale singing in
the ilex tree, Christabel ' and Mr. Olaf Hambro telling
stories about the Queen and Prince: and a very hot
concert yesterday, so I cannot, no I cannot, write today.
Patience, as Carlyle would say (in Italian). But consider
—the whole system is so strained over this end, that one
tiny grit, one late night, one too tiring day — t^es away
all rush, all fusing. And just as I saw it clear before me:
the very intricate scenes: all contrasting; building up: so
wait till tomorrow.

‘ Lady Aberconway.

220

A WRITER’S DIARY

Monday^ June i8th

Very very hot: day altered so as to go out after tea. A
drought over the world. In flood with Here and Now,
praise be. Yet very wary: only just now I made up the
scene with Ray and Maggie: a sign I am fertilising, for I
should be doing French for Janie, who comes at 5.

Friday, July 27th

Ah hah — but now, having despatched that entirely dis-
agreeable day. Worthing and Mr. Fears, representing
Rodmell Labour Party for an hour after dinner, I’m free
to begin the last chapter; and by a merciful Providence
the well is full, ideas arc rising and if I can keep at it
widely, freely, powerfully, I shall have two months of com-
plete immersion. Odd how the creative power at once
brings the whole universe to order. I can see the day
whole, proportioned — even after a long flutter of the
brain such as I’ve had this morning it must be a physical,
moral, mental necessity, like setting the engine ofT. A wild
windy hot day — a tearing wind in the garden; all the July
apples on the grass. I’m going to indulge in a series of
quick sharp contrasts: breaking my moulds as much as
ever I like. Trying every kind of experiment. Now of
course I can’t write diary or letters or read because I am
making up all the time. Perhaps Bob T. was right in his
poem when he called me fortunate above all — I mean in
having a mind that can express — no, I mean in having
mobilised my being — Icamt to give it complete outcome —
I mean, tliat I have to some extent forced myself to break
every mould and find a fresh form of being, that is of expres-
sion, for everything I feel or think. So that when it is work-
ing I get the sense of being fully energised — nothing
stunted. But this needs constant effort, anxiety and rush.
Here in Here and Now I am breaking the mould made by
The Waves.

NINETEEN THIRTY-FOUR

221

Thursday^ August 2nd

Tm worried too with my last chapters. Is it all too shrill
and voluble? And then the immense length, and the per-
petual ebbs and flows of invention. So divinely happy one
day; so jaded the next.

Monday^ August yth

A rather wet Bank Holiday. Tea with Keynes. Maynard
had had teeth out but was vcr>' fertile. For instanec: Yes,
I’ve been 3 weeks in America. An impossible climate. In
fact it has collected all the faults of all the climates. This
carries out my theory about climate. Nobody could pro-
duce a great work in America. One sweats all day and the
dirt sticks to one’s face. The nights are as hot as the days.
Nobody sleeps. Everyone is kept on the go all day long by
the climate. I used to dictate articles straight off. I felt per-
fectly well until I left. “So to German politics.” They’re
doing something very queer with their money. I can’t
make out what. It may be the Jews arc taking away their
capital. Let me sec, if 2,000 Jews were each to take away
;;^2,ooo — Anyhow, they can’t pay their Lancashire bill.
Always the Germans have bought cotton from Egypt, had
it spun in Lancashire; it’s a small bill, only ^ a million, but
they can’t pay. Yet they’re buying copper all the time.
VVliat’s it for? Armaments no doubt. That’s one of the
classic examples of international trade. 20,000 people out
of work. But of course there’s something behind it. What
is the cause of the financial crisis? They’re doing some-
thing foolish. No Treasury control of the soldiers.

(But I am thinking all the time of what is to end Here
and Now. I want a chorus, a general statement, a song for
four voices. How am I to get it? I am now almost within
sight of the end, racing along: becoming more and more
dramatic. And how to make the transition from the col-
loquial to the lyrical, from the particular to the general?)

222

A WRITER’S DIARY

Friday^ August 17th

Yes, I think owing to the sudden rush of two wakeful
niglits, making up early mornings rather, I think I see the
end of Here and Now (or Music or Dawn or whatever I shall
call it): it’s to end with Elvira going out of the house and
saying ^Vhat did I make this knot in my handkerchief for?
and all the coppers rolling about

It’s to be all in speeches — no play. I have now made a
sketch of what everyone is to say; and it ends with a supper
party in the downstairs room. I think the back is broken.
It will run to something like 850 of my rough pages I
imagine: which is at 200, 1 70,000 and I shall sweat it down
to 130,000.

Tuesdayy August 21st

The lesson of Here and Now is that one can use all kinds
of “forms” in one book. Therefore the next might be
poem, reality, comedy, play; narrative, psychology all in
one. Very sliort. This needs thinking over also, a play
about the Parnells, or a biography of Mrs. P.

Thursday y August ^oth

If I can’t even write here, owing to making up the last
scenes, how can I possibly read Dante? Impossible. After
three days* grind, getting back, I am I think floated again.
Robson comes to tea today; and the Wolves tomorrow;
and . . . another lapse making up Elvira’s speech . . .
“D’you know what I’ve been clasping in my hand all the
evening? Coppers.”

Well anyhow, I’ve enough in stock to last out this
chapter; I daresay another two or three weeks. Yesterday
I found a new walk, and a new farm, in the fold between
Asheham and Tarring Neville. Very lovely, all alone, with
the down rising behind. Then I walked back by a rough
broad overflowing grey river. The porpoise came up and
gulped. It rained. All ugliness was dissolved. An incredibly
1 8th Century landscape, happily making me think less of
Wilmington.

NINETEEN THIRTY-FOUR

223

A tremendous hailstorm after tea; like white icc; broken
up; lanced, lashing; like the earth being whipped. This
happened several times; black clouds while we played
Brahms. No letters at all this summer. But there will be
many next year, I predict. And I don’t mind; the day,
yesterday to be exact, being so triumphant: writing; tlic
walk; reading, Lccson, a * Saint Simon, Henry

James’s preface io P. of a Lady — very clever, ^ but

one or two things I recognise; then Gide’s Journal, again
full of startling recollection — things I could have said
myself.

Sundayy September 2nd

I don’t think 1 have ever been more excited over a book
than I am writing the end of — shall it be Dawn* Or is that
too emphatic, sentimental. I wrote like a — forget the word
— yesterday; my cheeks burn; my hands tremble. I am
doing the scene where Peggy listens to their talking and
bursts out. It was this outb^urst that excited me so. Too
much perhaps. I can’t make the transition to E.’s speech
easily,

Wednesday, September 12th

Roger died on Sunday. Tomorrow we go up, following
some instinct, to the funeral. I feel dazed; very wooden.
Women cry, L. says: but I don’t know why I cry — mostly
with Nessa. And Tm too stupid to write anything. My
head all stiff. I think the poverty of life now is what comes
to me; and tl^ blackish veil over everything. Hot weather;
a wind blowing. The substance gone out of everything. I
don’t think this is exaggerated. It’ll come back I suppose.
Indeed I feel a great wish, now and then, to live more all
over the place, to sec people, to create, only for the time
one can’t make the effort. And 1 can’t write to Helen, but
I must now shut this and try.

Maupassant, on writers (true I think). “En lui aucun
sentiment simple n’existe plus. Tout cc qu’il voit, scs joies,

* lUegible.

224

A WRITER^S DIARY

ses plaisirs, scs soufTranccs, scs d<Ssespoirs, devicnncnt
instantanement dcs sujets d’observation. II analyse malgre
tout, malgre lui, sans fin, Ics cocurs, Ics visages, Ics gestes,
Ics intonations.”

Remember turning aside at mother’s bed, when she
had died, and Stella ‘ took us in, to laugh, secretly, at the
nurse crying. She’s pretending, 1 said, aged 13, and was
afraid I was not feeling enough. So now.

The writer’s temperament.

“Nc jamais souffrir, penser, aimer, sentir,
Surl’eau 116 comme tout Ic monde, bonnement, franchc-

ment, simplcmcnt, sans s’analyscr soi-memc
apres chaque joic et apres chaque sanglot.”

Saturday^ September 15th

I was glad we went to the service on Thursday. It was a
very hot summer’s day. And all very simple and dignified.
Music, Not a word spoken. \Vc sat there, before the open
doors that lead into the garden. Flowers and strollers which
Roger would have liked. He lay under an old red brocade
witli two branches of very bright many coloured flowers.
It is a strong instinct to be with one’s friends. I thought of
him too, at intervals. Dignified and honest and large —
“large sweet soul” — something ripe and musical about
him — and then the fun and the fact that he had lived with
such variety and generosity and curiosity. I thought of this.

Tuesday^ September iSth

I like writing this morning because it takes off the strain
on the lips. A cold dull day after all this blaze. Now we
have Graham, and Mrs. W., but then, perhaps, peace:
and an end to the book? O if that could be! But I feel 10
miles distant — far away — detached, very jaded now.

I had a notion that I could describe the^tremendous
feeling at R.’s funeral: but of course I can’t. I mean the
universal feeling; how wc all fought with our brains, loves
and so on; and must be vanquished. Then the vanquisher,

* Stella Duckworth, V. W.’s half*sister.

NINETEEN THIRTY-FOUR 225

this outer Yorce became so clear; the indifTerent, and we
so small, fine, delicate. A fear then came to me, of death.
Of course I shall lie there too before that gate and slide in;
and it frightened me. But why? 1 mean, I felt the vainness
of this perpetual fight, with our brains and loving each
other against the other thing; if Roger could die.

But then, next day, today, which is Thursday, one week
later, the other thing begins to work — the exalted sense of
being above time and death W’hich comes from being again
in a writing mood. And this is not an illusion, so far as I
can tell. Certainly I have a strong sense that Roger would
be all on one’s side in this excitement, and that whatever
the invisible force does, we thus get outside it. A nice
letter from Helen. And today we go to Worthing

Sunday y September ^oth

The last words of the nameless book were written
10 minutes ago, quite calmly too. 900 pages: L. says
200,000 words. Lord God what an amount of re-writing
that means! But also, how heavenly to have brought the
pen to a stop at the last line, even if most of the lines have
now to be rubbed out. Anyhow the design is there. And
it has taken a little less than 2 years; some months less
indeed, as Flush intervened; therefore it has been written
at a greater gallop than any of my books. The representa-
tional part accounts for the fluency. And I should say —
but do I always say this? — with greater excitement: not,

I think, of the same kind quite. For I have been more
gerieral, less personal. No “beautiful writing’’; much
easier dialogue; but a great strain, because so many more
faculties had to keep going at once, though none so
pressed upon. No tears and exaltation at the end; but
peace and breadth, I hope. Anyhow, if I die tomorrow,
the line is there. And I am fresh; and sliall re-write the end
tomorrow. I don’t think I’m fresh enough, though, to go
on “making up”. That was the strain — the invention; and
I suspect that the last 20 pages have slightly flagged. Too

many odds and ends to sweep up. But I have no idea of the
whole

226

A WRITER^S DIARY

Tuesday y October 2nd

Yes, but my head will never let me glory sweepingly;
always a tumble. Yesterday morning the old rays of light
set in; and then the sharp, the very sharp pain over my
eyes; so that I sat and lay about till tea; had no walk, had
not a single idea of triumph or relief. L. bought me a little
travelling ink pot, by way of congratulation. I wish I
could think of a name. Sons and Daughters? Probably used
already. There’s a mass to be done to the last chapter,
which I shall, I hope, d.v., as they say in some circles, I
suppose, still, begin tomorrow; while the putty is still soft.

So the summer is ended. Until gth of September, when
Nessa came across the terrace — how I hear that cry He’s
dead — a very vigorous, happy summer. Oh the joy of
walking! I’ve never felt it so strong in me. Cowper PoNvys,
oddly enough, expresses the same thing: the trance like,
swimming, flying through the air; the current of sensa-
tions and ideas; and the slow, but fresh change of down, of
road, of colour; all this churned up into a fine thin sheet
of perfect calm happiness. It’s true I often painted the
brightest pictures on the sheet and often talked aloud.
Lord how many pages of Sons and Daughters — perhaps
Daughters and Sons would give a rhythm more unlike Sons
and Lovers^ or Wives and Daughters — I made up, chattering
them in my excitement on the top of the down, in the
folds. Too many buildings, alas; and gossip to the effect
that Christie and the Ringmer Building Co. are buying
Botten’s Farm to build on. Sunday I was worried, walking
to Lewes, by the cars and the villas. But again, I’ve dis-
covered the ghostly farm walk; and the Piddinghoe walk;
and such variety and loveliness — the river lead and silver;
the ship — Servic of London — going down: the bridge
opened. Mushrooms and the garden at night: the moon,
like a dying dolphin’s eye; or red orange, the harvest
moon; or polished like a steel knife; or lambent; some-
times rushing across the sky; sometimes hanging among
the branches. Now in October the thick wet mist has
come, thickening and blotting. On Sunday we had Bunny
and Julian.

227

NINETEEN THIRTY-FOUR

Books read or in reading.

Shakespeare: Troilus

Pericles

Taming of Shrew
Cymbeline

MaupassanO
de Vigny I only

St. Simon [scraps

Gide J

Library books: Powys

Wells

Lady Brooke
Prose. Dobrec
Alice James

Many MSS.

none worth keeping

Thursday y October 4th

A violent rain storm on the pond. The pond is covered
with little white thorns; springing up and down: the pond
is bristling with leaping white thorns, like the thorns on a
small porcupine; bristles; then black waves; cross it; black
shudders; and the little water thorns are white; a hcltcr
skelter rain and the elms tossing it up and down; the pond
overflowing on one side; lily leaves tugging; the red flower
swimming about; one leaf flapping; Aen completely
smooth for a moment; then prickled; thorns like glass;
but leaping up and down incessantly; a rapid smirch of
shadow. Now light from the sun; green and red; shiny;
the pond a sage green; the grass brilliant green; red
berries on the hedges; the cows very white; purple over
Asheham.

Thursdayy October iilh

A brief note. In today’s Lit. Sup.y they advertise Men
Without Arty by Wyndham Lewis: chapters on Eliot,
Faulkner, Hemingway, Virginia Woolf . . . Now I know
by reason and instinct that this is an attack; that I am

228 A WRITER’S DIARY

publicly demolished; nothing is left of me in Oxford and
Cambridge and places where the young read Wyndham
Lewis, ^iy instinct is not to read it. And for that reason:
Well, I open Keats and find: “Praise or blame has but a
momentary effect on the man whose love of beauty in the
abstract makes him a severe critic on his own works. My
own domestic criticism has given me pain beyond what
Blackwood or Quarterly could possibly inflict . . . This
is a mere matter of the moment — I think I shall be among
the English poets after my death. Even as a matter of
present interest the attempt to crush me in the Quarterly
has only brought me more into notice.”

Well: do I think I shall be among the English novelists
after my death? I hardly ever think about it. \Vhy then do
I shrink from reading W. L.? Why am 1 sensitive? I think
vanity: I dislike the thought of being laughed at: of the
glow of satisfaction that A., B. and G. will get from hear-
ing V. W. demolished: also it will strengthen further
attacks: perhaps I feel uncertain of my own gifts: but then,

I know more about them than W. L.: and anyhow I intend
to go on writing. What I shall do is craftily to gather the
nature of the indictment from talk and reviews; and, in a
year perhaps, when my book is out, I shall read it.
Already I am feeling the calm that always comes to me
with abuse: my back is against the wall: 1 am writing for
the sake of writing, etc.; and then there is the queer dis-
reputable pleasure in being abused — in being a figure, in
being a martyr, and so on.

Sunday^ October 14th

The trouble is I have used every ounce of my creative
writing mind in The PargiUrs. No headache (save what
Elly c^ls typical migraine — she came to see L. about his
strain yesterday). I cannot put spurs in my flanks. It’s true
I’ve planned the romantic chapter of notes: but I can’t
set to. This morning I’ve taken the arrow of W. L. to my
heart: he makes tremendous and delightful fun of B. and
B:^ calls me a peeper, not a looker; a ftmdamcntal prude;

^ Mr. Beimett and Mn. Brown.

NINETEEN THIRTY-FOUR 229

but one of the four or five living (so it seems) who is an
artist. That’s what I gather the flagellation amounts to:
(Oh I’m underrated, Edith Sitwell says). Well: this gnat
has settled and stung: and I think (12.30) the pain is over.
Yes. I think it’s now rippling away. Only I can’t write.
When will my brain revive? In 10 days I think. And it can
read admirably: I began The Seasons last night . . . Well:
I was going to say, I’m glad that I need not and cannot
write, because the danger of being attacked is that it makes
one answer back — a perfectly fatal thing to do. I mean,
fatal to arrange The P.s so as to meet his criticisms. And I
think my revelation two years ago stands me in sublime
stead: to adventure and discover and allow no rigid poses:
to be supple and naked to the truth. If there is truth in
W. L., well, face it: I’ve no doubt Tm prudish and peep-
ing. Well then live more boldly, but for God’s sake don’t
try to bend my writing one way or the other. Not that one
can. And there is the odd pleasure too of being abused and
the feeling of being dismissed into obscurity is also pleasant
and salutary.

Tuesday^ October i6th

Quite cured today. So the W. L. illness lasted two days.
Helped off by old Ethel’s bluff afiection and stir yesterday
by buying a blouse; by falling fast asleep after dinner.

Writing away this morning.

I am so sleepy. Is this age? I can’t shake it off. And so
gloomy. That’s the end of the book. I looked up past
diaries — a reason for keeping them, and found the same
misery after IVaves — after Lighthouse I was, I remember,
nearer suicide, seriously, than since 1913. It is after all
natural. I’ve been galloping now for three months — so
excited I made a plunge at my paper — well, cut that all
off — after the first divine relief, of course some terrible
blankness must spread. There’s nothing left of the people,
of the ideas, of the strain, of the whole life in short that has
been racing round my brain: not only the brain; it has
seized hold of my leisure; think how I used to sit still on
the same railway lines — running on my book. Well, so

230 A WRITER’S DIARY

there’s nothing to be done the next two or three or even
four weeks but dandle oneself; refuse to face it; refuse to
think about it. This time Roger makes it harder than
usual. We had tea with Nessa yesterday. Yes, his death is
worse than Lytton’s. Why, I wonder? Such a blank wall.
Such a silence: such a poverty. How he reverberated!

Monday^ October sgth

Reading Antigone. How powerful that spell is still —
Greek, an emotion difTcrent from any other. I will read
Plotinus: Herodotus: Homer I think.

Thursday^ November ist

Ideas that came to me last night dining with Clive;
talking to Aldous ' and the Kenneth Clarks.

About Roger’s life: that it should be written by different
people to illustrate different stages.

Youth, by Margery *

Cambridge, by Wedd?

Early London life . . .

Clive

Sickert

Bloomsbury, Desmond

V. W.

Later life, Julian

Blunt

Heard and so on.

all to be combined say by Desmond and me together.
About novels: the different strata of being: the upper,
under. This is a familiar idea, partly tried in the Pargiters.
But I think of writing it out more closely; and now, par-
ticularly, in my critical book: showing how the mind
naturally follows that order in thinking: how it is illus-
trated by literature.

I must now do biography and autobiography.

» Aldous Huxley. • Margery Fry.

NINETEEN THIRTY-FOUR 231

Friday, November 2nd

Two teeth out with a new anaesthetic: hence I write
here, not seriously. .And this is another pen. And niy brain
is very slightly frozen, like my gums. Tectlt become like
old roots that one breaks off. He broke and I scarcely felt.
My brain frozen thinks of Aldous and the Clarks: tliinks
vaguely of biography; thinks am I reviewed an>'\vhere —
can’t look — thinks it is a fine cold day.

I went upstairs to rinse my bleeding gum — the cocaine
lasts i an hour; then the nerves begin to feel again — and
opened the Spectator and read \V. L. on me again. An
answer to Spender. “I am not malicious. Several people
call Mrs. W. Felicia Hemans.” This I suppose is another
little scratch of the cat’s claws: to slip that in, by the way
— “I don’t say it — others do”. And so they are super-
cilious on the next page about Sickert; and so — Well L.
says I should be contemptible to mind. Yes: but I do mind
for 10 minutes: I mind being in the light again, just as I
was sinking into my populous obscurity. I must take a pull
on myself. I don’t think this attack will last more than two
days. I think I shall be free from the infection by Monday.
But what a bore it all is. And how manv sudden shoots into

4

nothingness open before me. But wait one moment. At
the worst, should I be a quite negligible writer, I enjoy
writing: I think I am an honest observer. Therefore the
world will go on providing me with excitement whether I
can use it or not. Also, how am I to balance W. L.’s
criticism with Yeats — let alone Goldie and Morgan?
Would they have felt anything if I had been negligible?
And about two in the morning I am possessed of a remark-
able sense of (driving eyeless) strength. And I have L. and
there are his books; and our life together. And freedom,
now, from money paring. And ... if only for a time I
could completely forget myself, my reviews, my fame, my
sink in the scale — which is bound to come now and to last
about 8 or 9 years — then I should be what I mostly am:
very rapid, excited, amused, intense. Odd, these c.xtrava-
gant ups and downs of reputation; compare the Americans
in the Mercury . . . No, for God’s sake don’t compare: let

232 A WRITER’S DIARY

all praise and blame sink to the bottom or float to the top
and let me go my ways indificrent. And care for people.
And let fly, in life, on all sides.

These are very sensible sayings I think. And it’s all for-
gotten and over.

What is uppermost now is (i) the question of writing
R.’s * life. Helen * came. Says both she and M.® wish it.
So I wait. What do I feel about it? If I could be free, then
here’s the chance of trying biography; a splendid, difficult
chance — better than trying to find a subject — that is, if
I am free.

Wednesday^ November 14th

And am now, 10.30 on Thursday morning, November
15th, about to tackle re-reading and re-writing The
Pargiters: an awful moment.

12.45. Well, that horrid plunge has been made and I’ve
started re-writing the Ps. Lord, Lord! Ten pages a day for
90 days. Three months. The thing is to contract: each
scene to be a scene: much dramatised: contrasted: each to
be carefully dominated by one interest: some generalised.
At any rate this releases the usual flood and proves that
only creating can bring about proportion: now, damnably
disagreeable, as I sec it will be — compacting the vast mass
— I am using my faculties again, and all the flics and fleas
arc forgotten.

A note: despair at the badness of the book: can’t think
how I ever could write such stuff — and with such excite-
ment: that’s yesterday: today I think it good again. A note,
by way of advising other Virginias with other books that
this is the way of the thing: up down up down — and Lord
knows the truth.

Wednesday, November sist

Margery Fry to tea on Sunday. A long debate about the
book on Roger: not very conclusive. She says she wants a
study by me, reinforced with chapters on other aspects.

* Roger Fry’s. • Helen Anrep. • Margery Fry.

NINETEEN THIRTY-FOUR

233

I say. Well, but those books arc unreadable. Oh of course
I want you to be quite free, she says. I should have to say
sometliing about his life, I say. The family — Now there of
course I’m afraid I should have to ask you to be careful,
she says. The upshot of all of which is that she’s to write to
the J^.S. asking for letters; that Tm to go through them;
that we’re then to discuss — so it will drag on these many
months, I suppose. And I plan working at Ps: and getting
in reading time with Roger’s papers, so that by October
next I could write, if that’s the decision. But what?

Monday, December 3rd

Isn’t it odd? Some days I can’t read Dante at all after
revising The Ps.: other days I find it very sublime and
helpful. Raises one out of the chatter of words. But today
(doing the scene at the Lodge) I’m too excited. I think it
a good book today. I’m in the thick again. But I will stop
at the end of the funeral scene and calm my brain. That is
I will write the play for Christmas: Freshwater a farce —
for a joke. And rig up my Contemporary Criticism article;
and look around. David Cecil on fiction: a good book for
readers, not for writers — all so elementary; but some good
points made, from the outside. I’ve done though with that
sort of criticism. And he’s often wrong: gets W. H. wrong,
I think; wants to have a profound tlicory. We — Blooms-
bury — arc dead; so says Joad. I snap my fingers at him.
Lytton and I the two distractions. Poor Francis * lies in a
hotel bedroom in Russell Square tliis rainy morning. I
went in and sat \vith him. Quite himself with a lump on
his forehead. And is aware of it all. May die under another
operation, or slowly stiffen into complete paralysis. His
brain may go. All this he knows; and there it was bet^veen
us, as we joked. He came to the verge of it once or nvice.
But I can’t feel any more at the moment — not after Roger.
I cannot go through that again. That’s my feeling. I kissed
bim. “This is the first time — this chaste kiss,” he said. So
I kissed him again. But I must not cry, I thought, and so
went.

^ Francis Birrelh

A WRITER’S DIARY

234

Tuesday^ December i 8 th

Talk with Francis yesterday. He is dying: but makes no
bones about it. Only his expression is quite different. Has
no hope. The man says he asks every hour how long will
this go on, and hopes for the end. He was exactly as usual;
no wandering, no incoherence. A credit to Athens. The
soul deserves to be immortal, as L. said. We walked back,
glad to be alive, numb somehow. I can’t use my imagina-
tion on tliat theme. ^Vhat would it be like to lie there,
expecting death? and how odd and strange a death. I
write hurriedly, going to Angelica’s concert this fine soft
day.

Sunday i December 30th

Since I forgot to bring my writing book, I must fill up
here, on loose sheets. End the year: with these cursed dogs
barking: and I am sitting in my new house; and it is, of all
hours, 3.10; and it is raining; and the cow has the sciatica;
and wc arc taking her into Lewes to catch a train to
London; after which wc have tea at Charleston, act the
play and dine there. It has been the wettest Christmas,
I should say, drawing a bow at a venture, on record. Only
yesterday did I manage my phantom farm walk; but pray
God, with Christmas over, the rain will stop falling, Miss
Emery’s dogs barking.

It was stupid to come without a book, seeing that I end
every morning with a head full of ideas about The Par-
giters. It is very interesting to write out. I am re-writing
considerably. My idea is to contract the scenes; very in-
tense, less so; then drama; then narrative. Keeping a kind
of swing and rhythm through them all. Anyhow it admits
of great variety — this book. I think it shall be called
Ordinary People, I finished, more or less, Maggie and Sarah,
the first scene, in the bedroom: with what excitement I
wrote it! And now hardly a line of the original is left. Yes,
but the spirit is caught I think. I write perhaps 60 pages
before I catch that. And coming back I see it hopping like
a yellow canary on its perch. 1 want to make both S. and

NINETEEN THIRTY-FOUR 235

M. bold characters, using character dialogue. Then we go
on to Martin’s visit to Eleanor: then the long day that ends
with the King’s death. I have sweated off 80 or 90 pages,
mostly due to a fault in paging though.

End of the year: and Francis transacting his death at
that nursing home in Collingham Place. The expression
on his face is what I see: as if he were facing a peculiar
lonely sorrow. One’s own death — think of lying there
alone, looking at it, at 45 or so: with a great desire to live.
“And so the New Statesman's going to be the best paper
that ever was, is it?” “He’s dead though,” (of Brimley
Johnson) spoken with a kind of bitterness. None of these
words are exactly right.

And here we are, chafed by the cow’s lame leg and the
dogs; yet as usual very happy I think: ever so full of ideas.
L. finishing his Quack ^ack of a morning: the Zet ^
crawling from one chair to the other — picking at his head.

And Roger dead. And am I to write about him? And
the stirring of the embers — I mean the wish to make up as
much of a fire as possible. So to get ready for the wet drive.
Dogs still barking.

^ A marmoseL

I 935

Tuesday^ January ist

The play rather tosh *; but I’m not going to bother
about making a good impression as a playwright. And I
have a lovely old year’s walk yesterday round the rat farm
valley, by a new way and met Mr. Frecth, and talked
about road making; and then into Lewes to take the car
to Martin’s and then home and read St. Paul and the
papers. I must buy the Old Testament. I am reading the
Acts of the Apostles. At last I am illuminating that dark
spot in my reading. What happened in Rome? And there
are seven volumes of Renan. Lytton calls him “mel-
lifluous”. Yeats and Aldous agreed, the other day, that
their great aim in writing is to avoid the “literary”.
Aldous said how extraordinary the “literary” fetish had
been among the Victorians. Yeats said that he wanted only
to use the words that real people say. That his change had
come through writing plays. And I said, rashly, that all
the same his meaning was very difficult. And what is “the
literary”. That’s rather an interesting question. Might go
into that, if 1 ever write my critical book. But now 1 want
to write On being despised. My mind will go on pumping
up ideas for that. And I must finish Ordinary People: and
then there’s Roger and writing despised. Begin Roger in
October 1935. Is that possible? Publish O.P. in October;
and work at these two during 1936. Lord knows! But I
must press a good deal of work in — remembering 53 — 54 —
55 are on me. And how excited I get over my ideas! And
there’s people to see.

Friday^ January iith

This spring will be on us all of a clap. Very windy;

' FreshwaUr, A Conutfy. This was a play written by Virginia Woolf
to be acted at a party on January 18th. It was acted by Vanessa Bell,
Julian and Angelica Bell, Adrian Stephen and Leonard Woolf.

336

237

NINETEEN-THIRTY-FI VE

today; a dumb misted walk two days ago to Piddinghoc.
Now the men are threshing. Ncssa and Angelica and Eve
yesterday. We talk a great deal about the play. An amus-
ing incident. And I shall hire a donkey’s head to take my
call in — by way of saying This is a donkey’s work. I make
out that I shall reduce Tht Caravan (so called suddenly) to
150,000: and shall finish re-typing in May. I wonder. It
is compressed I think. And sometimes my brain threatens
to split with all the meaning I think I could press into it.
The discovery of this book, it dawns upon me, is the com-
bination of the external and the internal. I am using both,
freely. And my eye has gathered in a good many externals
in its time.

Saturday^ January igth

The play came off last night, with the result that I am
dry-brained this morning and can only use this book as a
pillow. It was said, inevitably, to be a great success; and I
enjoyed — let me sec what? Bunny’s praise; Oliver’s but
not much Christabcl’s or the standing about pumping up
vivacities with David, Cory, Elizabeth Bowen: yet on the
whole it is good to have an unbuttoned laugliing evening
once in a way. Roger’s ghost knocked at the door — his
portrait of Charlie Sanger was delivered in the thick of the
rehearsal. And how Francis would have enjoyed this,
Leonard said. These are our ghosts now. But they would
applaud the attempt. So to sleep: and now, God bless my
soul, as Tennyson would say, I must rinse and freshen my
mind and make it work soberly on something hard. There’s
my Dante; and Renan, And the horrid winter lap begins;
the pale unbecoming days, like an aging woman seen at
1 1 o’clock. However, L. and I shall go for a walk this after-
noon; and that seems to me an enormous balance at the
Bank! solid happiness.

I have an idea for a “play”. Summer’s night. Someone
on a seat. And voices speaking from the fiowers.

* Oliver Slrachey.

238 A WRITER’S DIARY

Wednesdayy January 23rd

Yes, I ought to have explained why I wrote the Sickert.

I always think of things too late. I am reading The Faery
Qiieen — with delight. I shall write about it. I took Angelica
shopping. “Do you mind if I read The Heir of RedcUffeV*
she said at tea, amusing me. What a curious sense the
clothes sense is! Buying her coat, mine, hearing the women
talk, as of race horses, about new skirts. And I am
fluttered because I must lunch with Clive tomorrow in
my new coat. And I can’t think out what I mean about
conception: the idea behind F.Q^. How to express a kind of
natural transition from slate to state. And the air of
natural beauty. It is better to read the originals. Well,
Clive’s lunch will jump me out of this. And now that the
play is over, we must begin to sec people here: and go to
Hamlet and plan our spring journey. I am taking a fort-
night off fiction. My mind became knotted. I think of
making Theresa sing: and so lyricise the argument. Get
as far from T (so called after my Sarah and Elvira pro-
visionally) But oh heavens the duck squashy — this is from
the pressed duck Jack once gave ns: all juice; one squab
of juice. I am reading Point Counterpoint. Not a good novel.
All raw, uncooked, protesting. A descendant, oddly
enough, of Mrs. H. Ward: interest in ideas; makes people
into ideas. A man from America returns my letters and
says he is glad to see me as I am.

Fridayy February ist

And again this morning, Friday, I’m too tired to go on
with Ps. Why? Talking too much I daresay. I thought,
though, I wanted “society”: and saw Helen, Mary,
Gillett. Ann tonight. I think The Ps. however a promising
work. Only nerve vigour wanted. A day off today.

Wednesdayy February 20th

Sara is the real difficulty: I can’t get her into the main
stream, yet she is essential. A very difficult problem; this

NINETEEN THIRTY-FIVE 239

transition business. And the burden of something that I
won’t call propaganda. I have a horror of the Aldous novel:
that must be avoided. But ideas are sticky things: won’t
coalesce: hold up the creative, subconscious faculty; that’s
it I suppose. I’ve written the chophouse scene I don’t know
how many times.

Tuesday^ February 26th

A very fine skyblue day, my windows completely filled
with blue for a wonder. Mr. Riley has just mended them.
And I have been writing and writing and rewriting the
scene by the Round Pond. What I want to do is to reduce
it all so that each sentence, though perfectly natural dia-
logue, has a great pressure of meaning behind it. And the
most careful harmony and contrast of scene — the boats
colliding etc. — has also to be arranged. Hence the c.'ctrcme
difficulty. But I hope perhaps tomorrow to have done, and
then the dinner party and Kitty in the country should go
quicker. At least I find the upper air scenes much simpler;
and I think it’s right to keep them so. But Lord what a lot
of work still to do! It won’t be done before August. And
here I am plagued by the sudden wish to write an anti-
Fascist pamphlet.

Wednesday^ February 2yth

And I’ve just written it all over again. But it must do
this time, I say to myself. Yet I know that I must put the
screw on and write some pages again. It’s too jerky: too
.* Its obvious that one person sees one thing and
another another; and that one has to draw them together.
Who was it who said through the unconscious one comes
to the conscious, and then again to the unconscious?

I now feel a strong desire to stop reading F.Q,.: to read
Cicero’s letters, and the Chateaubriand Memoirs. As far
as I can see, thb is the natural swing of the pendulum. To
particularise after the generalisation of romantic poetr)'.

* Word omitted.

A WRITER’S DIARY

240

Monday^ March nth

How I should like, I thought some time on the drive up
this afternoon, to write a sentence again! How delightful
to feel it form and curve under my fingers! Since October
1 6 th I have not written one new sentence, but only copied
and typed. A typed sentence somehow difTers; for one
thing it is formed out of what is already there: it does not
spring fresh from the mind. But this copying must go on,

I see, till August. I am only now in the first war scene: with
luck I shall get to E. in Oxford Street before we go in May:
and spend June and July on the grand orchestral finale.
Then in August I shall write again.

Saturday^ March i6th

I have had three severe swingeings lately: Wyndham
Lewis; Mirsky; and now Swinnerton. Bloomsbury is ridi-
culed; and I am dismissed with it. I didn’t read W. L.:
and Swinnerton only affected me as a robin affects a
rhinoceros — except in the depths of the night. How
resilient I am; and how fatalistic now; and how little I
mind and how much; and how good my novel is; and how
tired I am this morning; and how 1 like praise; and how
full of ideas I am; and Tom and Stephen * came to tea,
and Ray * and William * dine; and I forgot to describe my
interesting talk with Nessa about my criticising her child-
ren; and I left out — I forget what. My head is numb
today and I can scarcely read Osbert on Brighton, let
alone Dante.

In last week’s Time and Tide St. John Ervine called
Lytton “that servile minded man . . . that Pandar” or
words to that effect. I’m thinking whether, if I write about
Roger, I shall include a note, a sarcastic note, on the
Bloomsbury baiters. No, I suppose not. Write them down
— that’s the only way.

* Stephen Spender. ■ Ray Strachey. • ^Vill^am Plomer.

241

NINETEEN THIRTY-FIVE
Monday^ March i 8 tk

The only thing worth doing in this book is to stick it out :
stick to the idea and don’t lower it an inch, in deference to
^yonc. What’s so odd is the way the whole thing dissolves
in company and then comes back with a rush; and Swin-
nerton’s sneers and Mirsky’s — making me feel that I’m
hated and despised and ridiculed — well, this is the only
answer: to stick to my ideas. And I wish I need never read
about myself or think about myself, anyhow till it’s done,
but look firmly at my object and think only of expressing
it. Oh what a grind it is embodying all these ideas and
having perpetually to expose my mind, opened and inten-
sified as it is by the heat of creation, to the blasts of the
outer world. If I didn’t feel so much, how easy it would be
to go on.

Havingjust written a letter about Bloomsbury I cannot
control my mind enough to go on with The Ps. I woke in
the night and thought of it. But whether to send it or not,
I don t know. But now I must think of something else.
Julian and Helen last night.

L. adv^cd me not to send the letter and after two seconds
I see he is right. It is better, he says, to be able to say we
don’t answer. But we suggest a comic guide to Bloomsbury
by Morgan and he nibbles.

Thursday f March 21st

Too jaded again to tackle that very difficult much too
crowded raid chapter. In fact I am on the verge of the
usual headache— for one thing yesterday was such a
scramble.

I have resolved to leave that blasted chapter here and

do nothing at Rodmell. Yet, as I see, I cannot read; my

mind is all tight like a ball of string. A most unpleasant

variety of headache; but I tliink soon over. Only a little

change needed. Not a real bad headache. Why make tliis

note. Because reading is beyond me and writing is like

humming a song. But what a worthless song! And it is the
spnng.

A WRITER’S DIARY

242

Monday, March 25th

And this morning, in spite ofbeing in a rage, I wrote the
whole of that d d chapter again, in a spasm of despera-

tion and, I think, got it right, by breaking up, the use of
thought skipping and parentheses. Anyhow that’s the
hang of it. And I cut from 20 to 30 pages.

Wednesday, March 2yth

I sec I am becoming a regular diariser. The reason is
that I cannot make the transition from Pargiters to Dante
without some bridge. And this cools my mind. I am rather
worried about the raid chapter: afraid if I compress and
worry that I shall spoil. Never mind. Forge ahead and sec
what comes next.

Yesterday we went to the Tower, which is an impres-
sive murderous bloody grey raven haunted military bar-
rack prison dungeon place; like the prison of English
splendour; the reformatory at the back of history; where
we shot and tortured and imprisoned. Prisoners scratched
their names, very beautifully, on the walls. And tlie crown
jewels blazed, very tawdry, and there were the orders, like
Spinks or a Regent Street jewellers. And wc watched the
Scots Guards drill: and an officer doing a kind of tiger
pace up and down — a wax faced barbers block officer
trained to a certain impassive balancing. The sergeant
major barked and swore. All in a hoarse bark: the men
stamped and wheeled like — machines: then the officer also
barked: all precise, inhuman, showing off. A degrading,
stupefying sight. But in keeping with the grey walls, the
cobbles, the executioner’s block. People sitting on the
river bank among old cannon. Steps etc. very romantic:
a dungeon like feeling.

Monday, April ist

At this rate I shall never finish the Purgatorio. But what’s
the use of reading with half one’s mind running on Eleanor
and Kitty. Oh that scene wants compacting. It’s too thin

NINETEEN THIRTY-FIVE 243

run. But I shall finish it before I go away. \Vc think of
three weeks in Holland and France; a week in Rome,
flying there. We went to Kew yesterday and if vegetable
notes are needed this is to signify that yesterday was the
prime day for cherry blossom, pear trees and magnolia.
A lovely white one with black cups to the flowers; another
purple tinted, just falling. Another and another. And the
yellow bushes and the daffodils in the grass. So to walk
through Richmond — a long walk by the ponds. I verified
certain details.

Tuesday^ April gth

I met Morgan in the London Library yesterday and
flew into a passion.

“Virginia, my dear,” he said. I was pleased by that
little affectionate familiar tag.

“Being a good boy and getting books on Bloomsbury?”

I said.

“Yes. You listen. Is my book down?” he asked Mr.
Mannering.

“We were just posting it,” said Mr. M.

“And, Virginia, you know I’m on the Committee
here,” said Morgan. “And we’ve been discussing whether
to allow ladies” — It came over me that they were going
to put me on: and I was then to refuse: “Oh but they do.”

I said. “There was Mrs. Green.”

“Yes, y«. There was Mrs. Green. And Sir Leslie
Stephen said never again. She was so troublesome. And I
said haven’t ladies improved? But they were all quite
determined. No, no, no, ladies are quite impossible. They
wouldn’t hear of it.”

See how my hand trembles. I was so angry (also very
tired) standing. And I saw the whole slate smeared. I
thought how perhaps M. had mentioned my name, and
they had said no no no: ladies are impossible. And so I
quieted down and said nothing and this morning in my
bath I made up a phrase in my book On Being Despised
which is to run— *a friend of mine, who was offered . . .
one of those prizes — for her sake the great exception was

A WRITER’S DIARY

244

to be made — who was in short to be given an honour — I
forget what . . . She said And they actually thought I
would take it. They were, on my honour, surprised, even
at my very modified and humble rejection. You didn’t tell
them what you thought of them for daring to suggest that
you should rub your nose in that pail of offal? I remarked.
Not for a hundred years, she observed. And I will bring
in M. Pattison: and I will say sympathy uses the same force
required to lay 700 bricks. And I will show how you can’t
sit on committees if you also pour out tea — that by the way
Sir L. S. spent his evenings with widow Green: yes, these
flares up are very g6od for my book: for they simmer and
become transparent: and I see how I can transmute them
into beautiful clear reasonable ironical prose. God damn
Morgan for thinking I’d have taken that . . . And dear
old Morgan comes to tea today and then sits with Berry
who’s had cataract.

The veil of the temple — which, whether university or
cathedral, academic or ecclesiastical, I forget — was to be
raised and as an exception she was to be allowed to enter
in. But what about my civilisation? For 2,000 years we
have done things without being paid for doing them. You
can’t bribe me now. Pail of offal? No: I said while very
deeply appreciating the hon. ... In short one must tell
lies, and apply every emollient in our power to the swollen
skin of our brothers’ so terribly inflamed vanity. Truth is
only to be spoken by those women whose fathers were pork
butchers and left them a share in the pig factory.

Friday^ April istli

This little piece of rant won’t be very intelligible in a
year’s time. Yet there arc some useful facts and phrases
in it. 1 rather itch to be at that book. But I have been
skirmishing round a headache, and can’t pull my weight
in the morning.

Saturday, April 13th

Let me make a note that it would be much wiser not to

NINETEEN-THIRTY.fi VE 245

attempt to sketch a draft of On Being Despised^ or whatever
it is to be called, until The Ps, is done with. I was vagrant
this morning and made a rash attempt, with the interest-
ing dkeovery that one can’t propagate at the same time
as write fiction. And as this fiction is dangerously near
propaganda, I must keep my hands clear.

It’s true I’m half asleep, after the Zoo and Willy. But
he threw some coals on my fire: the horror of the legal
profession: its immense wealth: its conventions: a Royal
Commission now sitting: its hidebound hoariness and so
on: worth going into one of tliese days: and the medical
profession and the osteopaths — worth a fling of laughter.
But oh dear, not now. Now for Alfieri and Nash and other
notables: so happy I was reading alone last night. VVe saw
the great dumb fish at the Zoo and the gorillas: storms of
rain, cloud: and I read Annie S. Sw’an on her life w’ith
considerable respect. Almost always this comes from auto-
biography: a liking, at least some imaginative stir: for no
doubt her books, which she can’t count, and has no
illusions about, but she can’t stop telling stories, are wash,
pigs’, hogs’ — any wash you choose. But she is a shrewd
capable old woman.

Salurdayy April 20th

The scene has now changed to Rodmcll, and I am
writing at the table L. made (supported on a cushion) and
It is raiiung. Good Friday was a complete fraud — rain and
more rain. I tried walking along the bank and saw a mole,
running on the meadow.— it glides rather— is like an
elongated guinea pig. Pinka * went and nuzzled it and
then It managed to slide into a hole. At the same time
through the rain I heard the cuckoo’s song. Then 1 came
home and read and read— Stephen Spender: too quick to
stop to think: shall I stop to think? read it again? It has
^nsiderable swing and fluency; and some general ideas;
but peters out in the usual litter of an undergraduate's
table: wants to get everything in and report and answer
all the chatter. But I want to investigate certain questions:

* A spaniel.

246 A WRITER’S DIARY

why do I always fight shy of my contemporaries? What is
really the woman’s angle? Why docs so much of this seem
to me in the air? But I recognise my own limitation: not a
good ratiocinator, Lytton used to say. Do I instinctively
keep my mind from analysing, which would impair its
crcativcncss? 1 think there’s something in that. No
creative writer can swallow another contemporary. The
reception of living work is too coarse and partial if you’re
doing the same thing yourself. But I admire Stephen for
trying to grapple with these problems. Only of course he
has to hitch them round — to use his own predicament as
a magnet and thus the pattern is too arbitrary: if you’re
not in his predicament. But as I say, I read it at a gulp
without screwing my wits tight to the argument. This is a
method I find very profitable: then go back and screw.

Saturday, April 27th

All desire to practise the art of a writer has completely
left me. I cannot imagine what it would be like: that is,
more accurately, I cannot curve my mind to the line of a
book; no, nor of an article. It’s not the writing but the
architecting that strains. If I write this paragraph, then
there is the next and then the next. But after a month’s
holiday I shall be as tough and springy as — say heather
root: and the arches and the domes will spring into the air
as firm as steel and light as cloud — but all these words
miss the mark. Stephen Spender demands a letter of criti-
cism; can’t write it. Nor can I describe with any certainty
Mrs. Collett, with whom both L. and I fell in love yester-
day. A whippet woman; steel blue eyes; silver spotted
jersey; completely free, edged, outspoken, the widow of
the Lord Mayor’s son, who was killed before her eyes
flying. After that she broke down and the only cure she
said was to go to Hong Kong and stay with Bella. From
that we did not expect anything much, to tell the truth;
whereas she ridiculed the Jubilee, the Lord Mayor and
told us all about life in the Mansion House. The L.M.
spends ^20,000 out of his own pocket on his year of office;
10,000 on his shcrifldom; then buys an ermine coat for

NINETEEN THIRTY-FIVE 247

;^i,ooo in which to admit the King to Temple Bar. It
rains; the King flashes past and the coat is spoilt. Her
mother in law is a perfectly natural sensible woman who
goes buying fish with a bag. The Queen gave her as a
token of esteem two large shells engraved witli the story of
George and the Dragon. These mercifully are left at the
Mansion House. The L.M. wears a dress that is heavy
with bullion. A terrible state of display and ugliness — but
she was so nice and unexpected I actually asked her to
come and see us — which, had she known it, is a compliment
we never never pay even the royal family.

JOURNEY TO HOLLAND, GERMANY,
ITALY AND FRANCE

Monday^ May 6th. Z^tphen
Ideas that struck me.

That the more complex a vision the less it lends itself to
satire: the more it understands the less it is able to sum up
and make linear. For example: Shakespeare and Dostoi-
evsky, neither of them satirise. The age of understanding:
the age of destroying — and so on.

Belchamber.

A moving, in its way, completed story. But shallow. A
superficial book. But also a finished one. Rounded off.
Only possible if you keep one inch below; because the
people, like Sainty, have to do things without diving deep;
and this rum in the current; which lends itself to complete-
ness. That is, if a writer accepts the conventions and lets
his characters be guided by them, not conflict with them,
he can produce an cfTcct of symmetry: very pleasant, sug-
gestive; but only on the surface. That is, I can’t care what
happens: yet I like the design. Also disgust at the cat
monkey psychology, to which he is admirably faithful. A
sensitive sincere mind — however, doing his embroidery
and making his acute observation. Not a snob eitlier.

I

248 A WRITER’S DIARY

Thursday^ May glh

Sitting in the sun outside the German Customs. A car
with the swastika on the back window has just passed
through the barrier into Germany. L. is in the Customs.
I am nibbling at Aaron's Rod. Ought I to go in and see
what is happening? A fine dry windy morning. The Dutch
Customs took lo seconds. This has taken lo minutes
already. The windows arc barred. Here they came out
and the grim man laughed at Mitzi.^ But L. said that when
a peasant came in and stood with his hat on> the man said
this office is like a church and made him move it. Heil
Hitler said the little thin boy opening his bag, perhaps
with an apple in it, at the barrier. VVe become obsequious
— delighted that is when the officer smiles at Mitzi — the
first stoop in our back.

That a work of art means that one part gets strength
from another part.

Monday^ May 13th. Brenner

Odd to see the countries change into each other. Beds
now made of layers on top. No sheets. Houses building.
Austrian, dignified. Winter lasts at Innsbruck till July. No
spring. Italy fronts me on a blue bar. The Czecho-
slovaks are in front going to the Customs house.

Perugia

Came through Florence today. Saw the green and white
cathedral and the yellow Arno dribbling into shallows. A
thunderstorm. Irises purple against the clouds. So to
Arezzo. A most superb church with dropped hull.

Lake Trasimen: stood in a field of red purple clover:
plovers egg lake; grey olives, exquisite, subtle; sea cold,
shell green. So on, regretting that we did not stay to
Perugia. Brafani where we stayed in 1908. Now all the
same. The same ardent sunburnt women. But lace and
so on for sale. Better to have stayed at Trasimen. I went
into an Albergo yesterday to buy rolls and found a sculp-

* Our marmoset.

NINETEEN THIRTY-FIVE 249

tured fireplace, all patriarchal — servants and masters.
Cauldron on the fire. Probably not much change since
i6th century: the people preserve liquids. Men and women
scything. A nightingale singing where we sat. Little frogs
jumping into the stream.

Brafani: three people watching the door open and shut.
Commenting on visitors like fates — summing up, placing.

A woman with a hard lined aquiline face — red lips

bird like — perfectly self-satisfied. French pendulous men,
a rather poor sister. Now they sit nibbling at human
nature. We are rescued by the excellence of our luggage.

Rome: tea. Tea in cafe. Ladies in bright coats and w'hite
ha^. Music. Look out and see people like movies. Abys-
sinia. Children lugging. Cafe haunters. Ices. Old man
who haunts the Greco.

Sunday caf^: N. and A. drawing. Very cold. Rome a
mitigated but perceptible Sunday. Fierce large jowlcd old
ladies. Q_. talking about Monaco. Talleyrand. Some very
poor black wispy women. The effect of dowdiness pro-
duced by wispy hair. The Prime Minister’s letter offering
to recommend me for the Companion of Honour. No.

Tuesday y May 21st

Oddities of the human brain: woke early and again
considered dashing off my book on Professions, to which
I had not given a single thought these 7 or 8 days. Why?
This vacillates with my novel — how arc they both to come
out simultaneously. But it is a sign that I must get pen to
paper again. Yet at the moment I am going rag marketing
with N. and A., who don’t come.

Sunday^ May 26th

I m writing at six on a Sunday evening, with a band
playing and stopping and children shouting in a too
luxurious hotel where the waiters bring one the menu and
I mix my F rench scandalously with odd scraps of painfully
acquired Italian. Still I can rattle off Gli Indifferenti
lying on my bed for pleasure. Oh the loveliness of the land

250 A WRITER’S DIARY

Still here and there — for instance that first morning’s drive
out of Rome — the sea and the lip of the unviolated land:
and the umbrella pines, after Civita Vecchia; then of
course all the intense boredom of Genoa and the Riviera,
with its geraniums and its bougainvillea and its sense of
shoving you between hill and sea and keeping you there
in a bright luxury light without room to turn, so steep the
vulture neck hills come down. But we slept at Lerici the
first night which docs the bay, the brimming sea and the
green sailing ship and the island and the sparkling fading
red and yellow night lamps to perfection. But that kind
of perfection no longer makes me feel for my pen. It’s too
easy. But driving today I was thinking of Roger —
Brignollcs — Gorges — my word, the olives and the rust red
earth and the flat green and the trees. But now the band
has begun again and we must go down to dine sumptu-
ously off local trout. Off tomorrow and home on Friday.
But though I’m impatient for my brain to cat again, 1 can
dally out these last days better than sometimes. Why?
Why? I go on asking myself. And feel I could soon polish
off those final scenes: a possible amplification of the first
paragraph occurred to me. But I don’t want to grind at
“writing” too hard. To open my net wide. It occurs to me,
as we drive, how I’m disliked, iiow I’m laughed at; and
I’m rather proud of my intention to take the fence gal-
lantly. But writing again!

Wednesday^ June 5th

Back here * again, and the grim wooden feeling that has
made me think myself dead since we came back is soften-
ing slightly. It’s beginning this cursed dry hand empty
chapter again in part. Every time I say it will be the devil!
but I never believe it. And then the usual depressions come.
And I wish for death. But I am now seeing that the last
200 pages will assert themselves and force me to write a
play more or less: all broken up: and I stop to begin
making up; Also, after the queer interlude, at once life —
that is the telephone beginning — starts. So that one is

^ London.

NINETEEN THIRTY-FIVE 251

forcibly chafed. (I meant to make a note about the
dramatic shape which forces itself upon me.)

Monday^ June loth. Whit Monday

At Monk’s House. \Vorking very hard. I think I shall
rush these scenes off. Yet I cannot write this morning
(Tuesday). How can I say, naturally, I have inherited the
Rose and the Star!

Thursday y June 13th

In some ways, it’s rather like writing The Waves — these
last scenes. I bring my brain to a state of congestion, have
to stop; go upstairs, run into towslcd Mrs. Brewster, come
back; find a little flow of words. It’s the extreme condensa-
tion; the contrasts; the keeping it all together. Does this
mean that it’s good? 1 feel I have a round of great pillar
to set up and can only drag and sweat. It’s something like
that. It’s getting barer and more intense. And then what
a relief when I have the upper air scenes — like the one
with Eleanor! only they have to be condensed loo. It’s tlie
proper placing that strains me.

Tuesday^ July i6th

A curious sense of complete failure. Margery hasn’t
written to me about my speech *: according to Janie,
Pamela thought the whole thing a failure. And it w'as for
this^that I i^ned my last pages! I can’t write this morning,
can’t get into the swing. Innumerable worries, about
getting people to dine and so on, afflict me. My head is all

jangled. And I have to get that d d speech printed, or

refuse to. The director has written. Never again, oh never
again!

I think though that I can get the last pages right, if I
can only dream myself back into them. Yes, but how
dream, when I have to see Susie and Ethel, to see Miss

* A speech made at Bristol to open a show of Roger Fxy’s pictures,
reprint^ in Tfu Momtni by V^irgioia Woolf*

A WRITER’S DIARY

252

Bclshcr’s house, to ring up and write notes and order this
and that? Well, be still and ruminate; it’s only 16th: there’s
a fortnight before August. And I’m sure that there is a
remarkable shape somewhere concealed there. It’s not
mere verbiage, I think. Ifneccssary I could put it away. But
I think no: merely go on and perhaps write a very rapid
short sketch, in ink — that’s a good plan. Go back and get
the central idea, and then rocket into it. And be very con-
trolled and keep a hand on myself too. And perhaps read
a little Shakespeare. Yes, one of the last plays: I think I
will do that, so as to loosen my muscles. But oh this anxiety,
and the perpetual knocking of tlic cup out of my hand.

Wednesday^ July lyih

Just now I finished my first wild retyping and find the
book comes to 740 pages: that is 148,000 words; but I
think I can shorten: all the last part is still rudimentary
and wants shaping; but I’m too tired in the head to do it
seriously this moment. I think all the same I can reduce it;
and then — ? Dear me. I see why 1 fled, after The IVaves,
to Flush. One wants simply to sit on a bank and throw
stones. I want also to read with a free mind. And to let the
wrinkles smooth themselves out. Susie Buchan, Ethel,
then Julian — so I talked from 4.30 till 1 a.m. with only
two hours for dinner and silence.

I think 1 see that the last chapter should be formed
round N.’s speech: it must be much more formal; and I
think I sec how I can bring in interludes — I mean spaces
of silence, and poetry and contrast.

Friday^ July igth

No. I go on getting preliminary headaches. It is no good
trying to do the last spurt, which should be much like a
breeze in the heavy elms, these last days here: yes, a wind
blowing in the trees that are thick wi^ green leaves. For
there must be movement as well as some weight, some-
thing for the breeze to lifr.

253

NINETEEN THIRTY-FIVE
Friday^ August i 6 th

I cannot make a single note here, because I am so ter-
rifically pressed re-writing— yes, typing out again at tlie
rate, if possible, of loo pages a week, this impossible eternal
book. I work without looking up till one; which it now is,
and therefore I must go in, leaving a whole heap of things
unsaid; so many people, so many scenes, and beauty, and a
fox and sudden ideas.

Wednesday j August 21st

Up in London yesterday. And I saw this about myself
in a book at Ttu Times — the most patient and conscientious
of artists — which I think is true, considering how I slave
at every word of that book. My head is like a like a— pud-
ding IS it — something that mildly throbs and can’t breed
a word at the end of the morning. I begin fresh enough.
And I sent off the first 20 pages or so to Mabel yesterday.

Margery Fry comes on Friday with iier hands full of
papers, she says. Another book. Have I the indomitable
courage to start on another? Think of the writing and re-
writing. Also there will be joys and ecstasies though. Again
very hot. I am going to re-paint this room. Went to Car-
penters yesterday and chose chintzes. Is this worth writine’
Perhaps.

Thursday y September jth

I’ve had to give up writing The that’s what it’s

to be called— this morning. Absolutely floored. Can’t
pmmp up a word. Yet I can sec, just, that something’s
there; so I shall wait, a day or two, and let the well fill. It
has to be damned deep this time. 740 pages in it. I think,
psychologically, this is the oddest of my adventures. Half
my brain dries completely; but I’ve only to turn over and
there s the other half, I think, ready, quite happily to
write a little article. Oh if only anyone knew anything
about ^e brain. And, even today, when I’m desperate,
almost in tears looking at the chapter, unable to add to it.

254 ^ WRITER’S DIARY

I feel I’ve only got to fumble and find the end of the ball
of string — some start off place, someone to look at *

perhaps — no, I don’t know — and my head would fill and
the tiredness go. But I’ve been waking and worrying.

Friday^ September 6 th

I am going to wrap my brain in green dock leaves for a
few days: 5, if I can hold out; till the children, L.’s nieces,
have gone. If I can — for I think a scene is forming. \Miy
not make an easier transition: Maggie looking at the
Serpentine say; and so avoid that abrupt spring? Isn’t it
odd that this was the scene I had almost a fit to prevent
myself writing? This will be the most exciting thing I ever
wrote, I kept saying. And now it’s the stumbling block. I
wonder why? Too personal, is that it? Out of key? But I
won’t think.

Saturday^ September ^th

A heavenly quiet morning reading Alficri by the open
window and not smoking. I believe one could get back to
the old rapture of reading if one did not write. The diffi-
culty is, writing makes one’s brain so hot it can’t settle to
read; and then when the heat goes, Tm so tired in the
head I can only skirmish. But I’ve stopped two days now
The Tears: and feel the power to settle calmly and firmly
on books coming back at once. John Bailey’s life, come to-
day, makes me doubt though. What? Everything. Sounds
like a mouse squeaking under a mattress. But I’ve only
just glanced and got the smell of Lit. dinner, Lit. Sup., lit
this that and the other — and one remark to the effect that
Virginia Woolf of all people has been given Gowper by
Desmond and likes it! I, who read Gowper when I was 15
— d -d nonsense.

Thursday^ September 12th

Mornings which are neither quiet nor heavenly, but

1 Illegible.

NINETEEN THIRTY-FIVE 255

mixed of hell and ecstasy: never liave I had such a hot
balloon in my head as re-writing The Tears: because it's so
long; and the pressure is so terrific. But I will use all my
art to keep my head sane. I will stop writing at 1 1.30 and
read Italian or Diyden and so dandle myself along. To
Ethel ^ at Miss Hudson’s yesterday. As I sat in the com-
plete English gentleman’s home, I wondered how anybody
could tolerate that equipage; and thought how a house
should be portable like a snail shell. In future perhaps
people will flirt out houses like little fans; and go on.
There’ll be no settled life within walls. There were endless
clean, well repaired rooms. A maid in a cap. Cakes on
pagoda trays. A terrible array of glossy brown furniture
and books — red sham leather. Alany nice old rooms, but
the manor house has been embellished and made of course
selfconsciously elaborate. A ballroom; a library — empty.
And Miss Hudson all brushed up with her Pekinese, a
competent ex-mayor of Eastbourne, with waved grey hair;
and all so neat and stout; and the silver frames askew; and
the air of order, respectability, commonplace. “I’m going
to call on the vicar’s wife.” Ethel immensely red and stout:
churning out, poor old woman, the usual indefatigable
egotbm about deafness and her Mass. She must have a
scene every six months. No. But of course, to go deaf, to be
76 — well, back to Charleston with Eve and Angelica.

Friday^ September 13th

What a combination for the superstitious! Driving off
to visit Margaret and Lilian at Dorking: and I have got
into a mild flood I think with The Tears. The difficulty is
always at tlie beginning of chapters or sections where a
whole new mood has to be caught, plumb in the centre.
Richmond accepts my Marryat and thanks me for his
poor little knighthood!

Wednesday, October 2nd

Yesterday we went to the L.P. meeting at Brighton and,

* Ethel Smyth.

256 A WRITER’S DIARY

of course, though I have refused to go again this morning,

I am so thrown out of my stride that I can’t hitch on to
The Tears again. Why? The immersion in all tliat energy
and all that striving for something that is quite oblivaous
of me; making me feel that I am oblivious of it. No, that’s
not got it. It was very dramatic. Bevin’s attack on Lans-
bury. Tears came to my eyes as L. spoke. And yet he was
posing I felt, acting, unconsciously, the battered Christian
man. Then Bevin too acted I suppose. He sank his head in
his vast shoulders till he looked like a tortoise. Told L. not
to go hawking his conscience round. And what is my duty
as a human being? The women delegates were very thin
voiced and unsubstantial. On Monday one said It is time
we gave up washing up. A thin frail protest but genuine.
A little reed piping, but what chance against all this
weight of roast beef and beer — which she must cook? All
very vivid and interesting; but overlapping: too much
rhetoric, and what a partial \icw: altering the structure
of society; yes, but when it’s altered? Do I trust Bevin to
produce a good world, when he has his equal rights? Had
he been born a duke. . . My sympathies were with Salter
who preached non-resistance. He’s quite right. That should
be our view. But then if society is in its present state?
Happily, uneducated and votcless, I am not responsible
for the state of society. These are some of the murmurs that
go round my head, and distract me from what is, after all,
my work. A good thing to have a day of disturbance — two
days even — but not three. So I didn’t go; and can’t really
write. However I will make myself when I’ve done this.
Odd the enormous susceptibility of my mind to surface
impressions: how I suck them in and let them swirl about.
And how far docs anybody’s single mind or work matter?
Ought we all to be engaged in altering the structure of
society? Louie ‘ said this morning she had quite enjoyed
doing for us, was sorry we were going. That's a piece of
work too in its way. And yet I can’t deny my love of
fashioning sentences. And yet . . , L. has gone there and I
daresay I’ll discuss it with him. He says politics ought to be
separate from art. We walked out in the cold over the

^ Mrs. Everest who did the house for us.

NINETEEN THIRTY-FIVE 257

marsh and discussed this. The fact is too my head easily
tires. Yes, too tired to write.

Tuesday y October i^th

Since we came back I have been in such full flush, with
Tears all the moruing, Roger between tea and dinner, a
walk, and people, that here’s a blank. And I only scamp
Roger this evening because I wore a hole in my back
yesterday; couldn’t write this morning; and must go up
and receive Miss Grueber {to discuss a book on women and
fascism — a pure have yer on as Lottie would say) in ten
minutes. Yes, it has been 10 days of calm full complete
bliss. And I thought how I shall hate it. Not a bit. London
is quiet, dry, comfortable. I find my dinner cooked for me.
No children screaming. And the sense of forging ahead,
easily, strongly (this petered out today) at The Tears.
Three days I got into wild excitement over The Next IVar.
Did I say the result of the L.P. at Brighton was the break-
ing of that dam between me and the new book, so that I
couldn’t resist dashing off a chapter; stopped myself; but
have all ready to develop — the form good I think — as
soon as I get time? And I plan to do this some time this
next spring, while I go on accumulating Roger. This divi-
sion is by the way perfect and I wonder I never hit on it
before-— some book or work for a book that’s quite the
other side of the brain between times. It’s the only way of
stopping the wheels and making them turn the other way,
to my great refreshment and I hope improvement. Alas,
now for Grueber.

Wednesday, October 16th

What I have discovered in writing The Tears is that you
can only get comedy by using the surface layer — for
example, the scene on the terrace. The question is can I
get at quite different layers by bringing in music and paint-
ing together with certain Roupings of human beings? This
is what I want to try for in the raid scene: to keep going
and influencing each other: the picture; the music; and

258 A WRITER’S DIARY

ihc other direction — the action — I mean character telling
a character — while the movement (that is the change of
feeling as the raid goes on) continues. Anyhow, in this
book I have discovered that there must be contrast; one
strata or layer can’t be developed intensively, as I did I
expect in The Waves, without harm to the others. Thus a
kind of form is, I hope, imposing itself, corresponding to
the dimensions of the human being; one should be able to
feel a wall made out of all the influences; and this should
in the last chapter close round them at the party so that
you feel that while they go on individually it has com-
pleted itself. But I haven’t yet got at this. I’m doing
Crosby — an upper air scene this morning. The rest of
going from one to another seems to me to prove that this
is the right sequence for me at any rate. I’m enjoying the
sequence, without that strain I had in The Waves.

Tuesday^ October 22nd

I am again held up in The Tears by my accursed love of
talk. That is to say, if I talk to Rose Macaulay from 4 —
6.30: to Elizabeth Bowen from 8 — 12 1 have a dull heavy
hot mop inside my brain next day and am a prey to eve^
flea, ant, gnat. So I have shut the book — Sal and Martin
in Hyde Park— and spent the morning t^ing out Roger’s
memoirs. This is a most admirable sedative and refresher.
I wish I always had it at hand. Two days rest of that nen:c
is my prescription; but rest is hard to come by. I think
I shall refuse all invitations to chatter parties till I’m
done. Could it only be by Christmas! For instance, if I go
to Edith Sitwell’s cocktail this evening I shall only pick
up some exacerbating picture: I shall froth myself into
sparklets; and there’ll be tlie whole smoothing and
freshening to begin again. But ajter The Tears is done then
I shall go everywhere: and expose every cranny to the
light. As it is, who doesn’t come here? Every day this week
I must talk. But in my own room I’m happier, I think.
So I now plod quietly through the Bridges letters and
perhaps begin to arrange all Helen’s tangled mass.

NINETEEN THIRTY-FIVE

259

Sunday, October syth

Adrian’s birthday, it strikes me. And wc asked him to
dine. No, I will not hurry this book. I’m going to let every
scene shape fully and easily in my hands, before sending it
to be typed, even if it has to wait another year. I wonder
why time is always allowed to harr>' one. I tliink it rather
good this morning. I’m doing Kitty’s party. And in spite
of the terrific curb on my impatience — never have I held
myself back so drastically — I’m enjoying this writing more
fully and with less strain and — what’s the word? — I mean
it’s giving me more natural pleasure than the others. But
I have such a pressure of other books kicking their heels in
the hall it’s difficult to go on very slowly. Yesterday we
walked across Ken Wood to Highgate and looked at the
two little old Fry houses. That’s where Roger was born
and saw the poppy. I think of beginning with that scene.
Yes, that book shapes itself. Then there’s my next war —
which at any moment becomes absolutely wild, like being
harnessed to a shark; and I dash off scene after scene. I
think I must do it directly The Tears is done. Suppose I
finish The Years in January: then dash ofT the IVar (or
whatever I call it) in six weeks: and do Roger next
summer?

Monday, Movember tSth

It struck me tho’ that 1 have now reached a further
stage in my writer’s advance. I sec that there arc four?
dimensions: all to be produced, in human life: and that
leads to a far richer grouping and proportion. I mean: I;
and the not I; and the outer and the inner — no Tm too
tired to say: but I see it: and this will affect my book on
Roger. Very exciting, to grope on like this. New combina-
tion in psychology and body — rather like painting. This
will be the next novel, after The Tears.

Thursday, Movember 21st

Yes, but these upper air scenes get too thin. Reflection

A WRITER’S DIARY

360

after a morning of Kitty and Edward in Richmond. At
first they’re such a relief though after the other that one
gets blown — flies ahead. The thing is to take it quietly: go
back: and rub out detail; too many “points” made; too
jerky, and as it were talking “at”. I want to keep the indi-
vidual and the sense of things coming over and over again
and yet changing. That’s what’s so difficult, to combine
the two.

Wednesday^ November 2yth

Too many specimen days — so I can’t write. Yet,
heaven help me, have a feeling that I’ve reached the no
man’s land that Tm aficr; and can pass from outer to
inner and inhabit eternity. A queer very happy free feeling,
such as I’ve not had at the finish of any other book. And
this too is a prodigious long one. So what does it mean?
Another balk this morning; can’t get the start off of the
last chapter right. What’s wrong I don’t know. But I
needn’t hurry. And the main thing is to let ideas blow
easily; and come softly pouring. And not to be too em-
phatic. Of course to stop straight into the middle of a new
character is difficult: North: and I’m a little exacerbated;
meant to have a quiet week, and here’s Nelly C, and Nan
Hudson both asking to come; and will I ring up; and
Nan has a Turkish friend. But I will not be rushed. No.

Saturday y December 28th

It’s all very well to write that date in a nice clear hand,
because it begins this new book, but I cannot disguise the
fact that I’m almost extinct, like a charwoman’s duster;
that is my brain; what with the last revision of the last
pages of The Tears. And is it the last revision? And why
should I lead the dance of the days with this tipsy little
spin? But in fact I must stretch my cramped muscles: it’s
only half past eleven on a damp grey morning, and I want
a quiet occupation for an hour. That reminds me — I must
divine some let down for myself that won’t be too sudden
when the end is reached. An article on Gray I think. But

26i

NINETEEN-THIRTY-Fn'E

how the whole prospect will take different proportions,
once I’ve relaxed this cfTorl. Shall I ever write a lontj book
again— a long novel that has to be held in the brain^\t full
stretch— for close on three years? Nor do I even attempt
to ask if it’s ^vorth while. There are mornings so congested
I can t even copy out Roger. Goldie depresses me un-
speakably. Always alone on a mountain top asking him-
self how to live, theorising about life; never living. Roger
always down in the succulent valleys, living. But what a
thin whistle of hot air Goldie lets out tlirough his front
teeth. Always live in the whole, life in the one; always
Shelley and Goethe, and then he loses his hot water bottle;
and never notices a face or a cat or a dog or a flower,
except in the flow of the universal. This explains why his
highminded books are unreadable. Vet he was so charming,
intermittently.

Sundayj December 2gth

I have in fact just put the last words to The Years—
rolling, rolling, though it’s only Sunday and I allowed
myself till Wednesday. And I am not in such a twitter as
usual. But then I meant it to end calmly — a prose work.
And is it good? That I cannot possibly tell. Does it hang
together? Docs one part support anotljcr? Can I flatter
mysc^ that it composes; and is a whole? \Vell there still
remains a great deal to do. I must still condense and point:
give pauses their effect, and repetitions, and tlie run on. It
runs in this version to 797 pages: say 200 each (but that’s
liberal) it comes to roughly 157,000 — shall we say
140,000. Yes, it needs sharpening, some bold cuts and
emphases. That will take me another — I don’t know how
long. And I must subconsciously wean my mind from it
nnally and prepare another creative mood, or I shall sink
into acute despair. How odd — that this will all fade away
and something else take its place. And by this time next
year I shall be sitting here with a vast bundle of press
cuttings no; not in the flesh I hope: but in my mind there
will be the usual chorus of what people have said about
this mass of scribbled typewriting, and I shall be saying.

262 A WRITER’S DIARY

That was an attempt at that: and now I must do some-
thing different. And all the old, or new, problems will be
in front of me. Anyhow the main feeling about this book
is vitality, fruitfulness, energy. Never did I enjoy writing a
book more, I think: only with the whole mind in action:
not so intensely as The iVaves.

Mondayy December 30th

And today, no it’s no go. I can’t write a word: too much
headache. Can only look back at The Tears as an inacces-
sible Rocky Island; which I can’t explore, can’t even
think of. At Charleston yesterday. The great yellow table
with very few places. Reading Roger I became haunted
by him. What an odd posthumous friendship — in some
ways more intimate than any I had in life. The things I
guessed arc now revealed; and the actual voice gone.

I had an idea — I wish they’d sleep— while dressing —
how to make my war book * — to pretend it’s all the
articles editors have asked me to write during the past few
years— on all sorts of subjects — Should women smoke:
Short skirts: War etc. This would give me the right to
wander; also put me in the position of tlic one asked. And
excuse the method: while giving continuity. And there
might be a preface saying this, to give the right tone. I
think that’s got it. A wild wet night — floods out: rain as I
go to bed: dogs barking: wind battering. Now I shall slink
indoors 1 think and read some remote book.

^ This became TTira Guiiuas.

1936

Friday^ January ^rd

I began the year wth three entirely submerged days,
headache, head bursting, head so full, racing with ideas;
and the rain pouring; the floods out; when wc stumbled
out yesterday the mud came over my great rubber boots;
the water squelched in my soles; so this Christmas has
been, as far as country is concerned, a failure, and in spite
of what London can do to chafe and annoy I’m glad to go
back and have, rather guiltily, begged not to stay here
another week. Today it is a yellow grey foggy day; so that
I can only see the hump, a wet gleam, but no Caburn. I
am content though because I think that I have recovered
enough balanw in the head to begin The Tears, I mean
the final revision on Monday. This suddenly becomes a
little urgent, because for the first time for some years, L.
says I have not made enough to pay my share of the house,
and have to find £,’jo out of my hoard. This is now reduced
to I must fill it up. Amusing, in its way, to think

of economy again. But it would be a strain to think
seriously; and worse— a brutal interruption— had I to
make money by journalism. The next book I think of call-
ing Answers to Correspondents . . . But I must not at once
stop and make it up. No. I must find a patient and quiet
method of soothing that excitable nerve to sleep until The
T tars is on the table — finished. In February? Oh the
relief as if a vast — what can I say — bony excrescence —
bag of muscle — were cut out of my brain. Yet it’s better to
write that than the other. A queer light on my psychology.
I can no longer write for papers. I must write for my own
book. I mean I at once adapt what I’m going to say, if I
think of a newspaper.

Saturday^ January 4th

The weather has improved and we have decided to stay

263

264 A WRITER’S DIARY

till Wednesday. It will now of course rain. But I will make
some good resolutions: to read as few weekly papers, which
arc apt to prick me into recollection of myself, as possible,
until this Tears is over: to fill my brain with remote books
and habits; not to think of Answers to Correspondents', and
altogether to be a.s fundamental and as little superficial, to
be as physical, as little apprehensive, as possible. And now
to do Roger; and then to relax. For, to tell the truth, my
head is still all nerves; and one false move means racing
despair, exaltation, and all the rest of that familiar misery:
that long scale of unhappiness. So I have ordered a sirloin
and we shall go for a drive.

Sunday, January ^th

I have had another morning at the old plague. I rather
suspect that I have said the tiling I meant, and any further
work will only muddle. Further work must be merely to
tidy and smooth out. This seems likely because I’m so
calm. I feel well, that’s done. I want to be off on something
else. Whether good or bad, I don’t know. And my head is
quiet today, soothed by reading The Trumpet Major last
night and a drive to the floods. The clouds were an extra-
ordinary tropical birds wing colour: an impure purple;
and the lakes reflected it, and there were droves of plover,
black and white; and all very linear in line and pure and
subtle in colour. How I slept!

Tuesday, January jth

1 have again copied out the last pages, and I think got
the spacing better. Many details and some fundamentals
remain. The snow scene for example, and I suspect a good
many unfaced passages remain. But I preserve my sense
that it’s stated; and I need only use my craft, not my
creation.

Thursday, January i6th

Seldom have I been more completely miserable than I

NINETEEN THIRTY-SIX 265

about 6.30 last night, reading o\cr llie last part of
The Years. Such feeble twaddle— such twilight gossip it
seemed; such a show up of my own decrepitude, and at
such huge length. I could only plump it down on the table
and rush upstairs with burning checks to L. He said-
“This always happens.” But I felt, No, it has never been
so bad as this. I make this note should I be in the same
state after another book. Now tliis morning, dipping in
n seems to me, on the contrary-, a full, bustling live book!
I looked at the early pages. I think there’s something to it.

^’Jst now force myself to begin regular sending to
Mabel. 100 pages go tonight I swear.

Tuesday^ February 2^th

And this will show how hard I work. This is the first
moment— this five minutes before lunch— that I’ve had
to write here. I work all the morning: I work from 5 to 7
most days. Then I’ve had headaches: vanquish them by
lying still and binding books and reading David Copperfietd.

1 have sworn that the script shall be ready, typed and cor-

March. L. w-ill then read it. And I’ve still
all the Richmond and El. scene to type out: many correc-
tions m that most accursed raid scene to make: all this to
have typed: if I can by the ist which is Sunday; and then
1 must begin at the beginning and read straight through.
^ 1 m quite unable either to write here or to do Roger.
On the whole, I’m enjoying it— that’s odd— though in die
ups and downs and witli no general opinion.

Wednesdayy March 4th

through copying the raid scene, I
should think for the 13th time. Then it will go tomorrow;
and I shall have I think one day’s full holiday — if I dare-
before re-reading. So I’m in sight of the end : that is in sight
of the beginning of the otlicr book which keeps knocking
unmercifully at the door. Oh to be able once more to
write freely every morning, spinning my own words afresh
what a boon — what a physical relief, rest, delight after

266 A WRITER’S DIARY

these last months — since October year more or less— of
perpetual compressing and re-writing always at that one
book.

Wednesday^ March nth

Well yesterday I sent off 132 pages to Clark. ^ We have
decided to take this unusual course — that is to print it in
galleys before L. secs it, and send it to America.

Friday^ March 13th

Getting along rather better. So I steal 10 minutes before
lunch. Never have I worked so hard at any book. My aim
is not to alter a thing in proof. And I begin to suspect
there’s something there — it hasn’t flopped yet. But enough
of The Years. We walked round Kensington Gardens
yesterday discussing politics. Aldous refuses to sign the
latest manifesto because it approves sanctions. He’s a
pacifist. So am I. Ought I to resign. L. says that consider-
ing Europe is now on the verge of the greatest smash for
600 years, one must sink private differences and support
the League. He’s at a special L. Party meeting this morn-
ing. This is the most feverish ovenvorked political week
we’ve yet had. Hitler has his army on the Rhine. Meetings
taking place in London. So serious are the French that
they’re — the little Intelligence group — is sending a man
to confer here tomorrow: a touching belief in English
intellectuals. Another meeting tomorrow. As usual, I
think, Oh this will blow over. But it’s odd, how near the
guns have got to our private life again. I can quite dis-
tinctly see them and hear a roar, even though I go on, like
a doomed mouse, nibbling at my daily page. What else is
there to do — except answer the incessant telephones, and
listen to what L. says. Everything goes by the board.
Happily we have put off all dinners and so on, on account
of The Years. A very concentrated, laborious spring this is:
with perhaps two fine days: crocuses out: then bitter black
and cold. It all seems in keeping: my drudgery: our un-

^ R. & R. Qark, Ltd., the printen.

NINETEEN THIRTY-SIX 267

sociability: the crisis: meetings: dark — and what it all
means, no one knows. Privately ... no, I doubt that I’ve
seen anyone, or done anything but walk and work — walk
for an hour after lunch — and so on.

Monday., March i6th

I ought not to be doing this: but I cannot go on bother-
ing with those excruciating pages any more. I shall come
in at 3 and do some: and again after tea. For my own
guidance, I have never sufTered, since The Voyage Out, such
acute despair on re-reading, as this time. On Saturday for
instance: there I was, faced with complete failure: and yet
the book is being printed. Then I set to: in despair;
thought of throwing it away: but went on typing. After
an hour, the line began to tauten. Yesterday I read it
again; and I think it may be my best book.

However . . . I’m only at the King’s death. I think the
change of scene is what’s so exhausting: the catching people
plumb in the middle: then jerking off. Every beginning
seems lifeless — and then I have to retype. I’ve more or less
done 250: and there’s 700 to do. A walk down the river
and through Richmond Park did more than anything to
pump blood in.

Wednesday^ March i8ih

It now seems to me so good— still talking about The
Tears — that I can’t go on correcting. In fact I do think the
scene at Witterings is about the best, in that line, I ever
wrote. First proofs just come: so there’s a cold douche
waiting me there. And I can’t concentrate this morning —
must make up Letter to an Englishman. I think, once
more, that is the final form it will take.

Tuesday y March 24th

A very good weekend. Trees coming out: hyacinths;
crocuses. I^t. The first spring weekend. Then wc walked
up to Rat Farm — looked for violets. Still spring here. Am

268 A WRITER’S DIARY

tinkcrinc; — in a drowsy state. And I’m so absorbed in Two
Guineas — that’s what I’m going to call it. I must very
nearly verge on insanity I think, I get so deep in this book
I don’t know what I’m doing. Find myself walking along
the Strand talking aloud.

Sunday, March 2gth

Now it’s Sunday and I’m still forging ahead. Done
Eleanor in Oxford Street for the 20th time this morning.
I’ve plotted it out now and shall have done by Tuesday
yih April, I tell myself. And I can’t help thinking it’s
rather good. But no more of that. One bad head this week,
lying prostrate.

Thursday, April gth

Now will come the season of depression, after conges-
tion, suffocation. The last batch was posted to Clark at
Brighton yesterday. L. is in process of reading. I dare-
say I’m pessimistic, but I fancy a certain tepidity in his
verdict so far: but then it’s provisional. At any rate these
arc disgusting, racking at the same time enervated days,
and must be thrown on the bonfire. The horror is that
tomorrow, aflcr this one windy day of respite — oh the cold
north wind that has blown ravaging daily since we came,
but I’ve had no ears, eyes, or nose: only making my quick
transits from house to room, often in despair — after this
one day’s respite, I say, I must begin at the beginning and
go through 600 pages of cold proof. Why, oh why? Never
again, never again. No sooner have I written that, than I
make up the first pages of Two Guineas, and begin a con-
genial ramble about Roger. But seriously I think this shall
be my last “novel”. But then I want to tackle criticism too.

Thursday, June itth

I can only, after two months, make this brief note, to
say at last after two months dismal and worse, almost
catastrophic illness — never been so near the precipice to

NINETEEN THIRTY-SIX 269

my own feeling since i9i3_I’ni again on top. I have to
rc-wnte, I mean interpolate, and rub out most of The
Tears in proof. But I can’t go into that. Can only do an
hour or so. Oh but the divine joy of being mistress of my
mind again! Back from M.H.‘ yesterday. Now I am goin"
to live like a cat stepping on eggs till my 600 pages arc
done. I think I can — I think I can — but must have ini*
mensc courage and buoyancy to compass it. This, as I say,
my first voluntar>' writing since April gth, after which I
pitched into bed: then to Cornwall— no note of that: then
back: saw Elly: then to M.H.: home yesterday for a fort-
nights trial. And the blood has mounted to my head.
Wrote 1880 tliis morning.

Sunday^ June 2ist

After a week of intense suffering— indeed mornings of
lorture—and I’m not exaggerating— pain in my head— a
Icchng of complete despair and failure— a head inside like
the nostrils after hay fever — here is a cool quiet morning
again, a doling of relief, respite, hope. Just done tlie
Kobson: think it good. I am living so constrainedly: so
reprcssedly: I can’t make notes of life. Everything is
planned, battened down. I do half an hour down here;
go up, often in despair; lie down: walk round the Square:
come back and do another ten lines. Then to Lords yester-
day. Always with a feeling of having to repress, control.

between tea and dinner. Rose
M., Elizabeth Bowen, Nessa. Sat in the Square last night,
baw the dripping green leaves. Thunder and lightning.
Purple sky. N. and A. discussing 4/8 Umc. Cats stealing
round. L. dining with Tom and Bella. A very strange,
most remarkable summer. New emotions: humility:
impersonal joy: literary despair. I am learning my craft
in the most fierce conditions. Really reading Flaubert’s
letters I hear my own voice cry out Oh art! Patience: find
him consohng, admonishing. I must get this book quietly,
strongly, danng y mto shape. But it won’t be out till next
year. Yet I think it has possibilities, could I seize them. I

* Monks House, Rodmell.

270

A WRITER’S DIARY

am trying to cut the characters deep in a phrase: to pare
off and compact scenes: to envelop the whole in a medium.

Tuesday^ June 23rd

A good day — a bad day — so it goes on. Few people can
be so tortured by writing as I am. Only Flaubert I think.
Vet I sec it now, as a whole. I think I can bring it off, if I
only have courage and patience: take each scene quietly:
compose: I tliink it may be a good book. And then — oh
when it’s finished!

Not so clear today, because I went to dentist and then
shopped. My brain is like a scale: one grain pulls it down.
Yesterday it balanced: today dips.

Friday y October 30th

I do not wish for the moment to write out the story of
the months since I made the last mark here. I do not wish,
for reasons I cannot now develop, to analyse that extra-
ordinary summer. It will be more helpful and healthy for
me to write scenes; to take up my pen and describe actual
events: good practice too for my stumbling and doubting
pen. Can I still “write”? That is the question, you sec. And
now I will try to prove if the gift is dead, or dormant.

Tuesday j November 3rd

Miracles will never cease — L. actually liked The Fearsl
He thinks it so far — as far as the wind chapter — as good
as any of my books. I will put down the actual facts. On
Sunday I started to read the proofs. When I had read to
the end of the first section I was in despair: stony but con-
vinced despair. I made myself yesterday read on to
Present Time. When I reached that landmark I said,
“This is happily so bad that there can be no question
about it. I must carry the proofs, like a dead cat, to L. and
tell him to burn them unread.” This I did. And a weight
fell off my shoulders. That is true. I felt relieved of some
great pack. It was cold and dry and very grey and I went

NINETEEN THIRTY. SIX 27!

out and walked through the graveyard with Cromwell’s
daughter’s tomb down through Grays Inn along Holborn
and so back. Now I was no longer Virginia, the genius,
but only a perfectly magnificent yet content — shall I call
it spirit? a body? And very tired. Very old. But at the same
time content to join these 100 years with Leonard. So we
lunched in a constraint: a grey acceptance: and I said to
L. I will write to Richmond and ask for books to review.
The proofs will cost I suppose between ;{^2oo and ;^30o
which I will pay out of my hoard. As I have £^oo this will
leave £^00. I was not unhappy. And L. said he thought 1
might be wrong about the book. Then ever so many
strange men arrived: Mr. Mumford, mahogany coloured,
lean, with a very hard bowler and a cane; whom I put in

the draNving room with a cigarette: Mr. ver>' heav>’

and large, who said Pardon me and knocked at the door.
And Lord and Lady Cecil rang up to ask us to lunch to
meet the Spanish Ambassador. (I am making up Three
Guineas.) Then, after tea, wc went to the Sunday Times book
show. How stuffy it was! How dead I felt — Oh how infin-
itely tired! And Miss White came up, a hard little woman
witli a cheery wooden face, and talked about her book
^d reviews. And then Ursula Strachey came across from
Duckworths and said You don’t know who I am? And I
remembered the moonlit river. And then Roger Scnhousc
tapped me on the shoulder. Wc went home and L. read
and read and said nothing: I began to feel actively
depressed; yet could make up The Years differently — I’ve
thought of a scheme for another book— it should be told
in the first person. Would that do as a form for Roger? —
into one of my horrid heats and deep slumbers,
^ if the blood in my head were cut off. Suddenly L. put
do\\m his proof and said he thought it extraordinarily
gOM— as good as any of them. And now he is reading on,
and tired out with the exertion of writing these pages I’m
going up to read the Italian book.

Wedrusday^ November 4th

L. who has now read to the end of 1914, still thinks it

A WRITER'S DIARY

1T1

extraordinarily good: very strange: very interesting: very
sad. VV^e discussed my sadness. But my difficulty is this: I
cannot bring myself to believe that he is right. It may be
simply that I exaggerated its badness, and therefore he
now, finding it not so bad, exaggerates its goodness. If it
is to be published, I must at once sit down and correct:
how can I? Every other sentence seemed to me bad. But I
am shelving the question till he has done, which should be
tonight.

Thursday y November ^th

Tlie miracle is accomplished. L. put down the last sheet
about 12 last niglit; and could not speak. He was in tears.
He says it is “a most remarkable book” — he likes it better
than The Waves — and has not a spark of doubt that it must
be published. I, as a witness, not only to his emotion but to
his absorption, for he read on and on, can’t doubt his
opinion. What about my own? Anyhow the moment of
relief was divine. I hardly know yet if I’m on my heels or
head, so amazing is the reversal since Tuesday morning. I
have never had such an experience before.

Monday, November gth

I must make some resolutions about this book. I find it
extremely difficult. I get into despair. It seems so bad. I
can only cling to L.’s verdict. Then I get distracted: I
tried, as an anodyne, to take up an article; a memoir; to
review a book for The Listener. They make my mind race.
I must fix it upon The Tears. I must do my proofs — send
them off. I must fix my mind on it all the morning. I think
the only way is to do that, and then let myself do some-
thing else between tea and dinner. But immerse in The
Tears all the morning — nothing else. If the chapter is
difficult, concentrate for a short time. Then write here.
But don’t dash off into other writing till after tea. When it
is done, we can always ask Morgan.

3/3

NINETEEN THIRTY-SIX
Tuesday^ November loth

On the whole it has gone better tJiis morning. It’s true
my brain is so tired of this job it aches after an hour or less.
So I must dandle it, and gently immerse it. Yes, I think
it’s good; in its very difficult way.

I wonder if anyone has ever suffered so much from a
book as I have from The Tears. Once out I will never look
at it again. It’s like a long childbirth. Think of that sum-
mer, every morning a headache, and forcing myself into
that room in my nightgown; and lying down after a page:
and always with the certainty of failure. Now that cer-
tainty is mercifully removed to some c.xtcnt. But now I
feel I don’t care what anyone says so long as I’m rid of it.
And for some reason I feel I’m respected and liked. But
this is only the haze dance of illusion, always changing.
Never write a long book again. Yet I feel I shall write
more fiction — scenes will form. But I am tired this morn-
ing: too much strain and racing yesterday.

Monday y November ^oth

There is no need whatever in my opinion to be unhappy
about The Tears. It seems to me to come off at the end.
Anyhow, to be a taut, real, strenuous book. Just finished
It; and fed a little exalted* It’s different from the others of
wurse; has I think more “real” life in it; more blood and
bone. But anyhow, even if there arc appalling watery
patch<^, and a grinding at the beginning, I don’t think I
need lie quaking at nights. I think I can feel assured. This
i say sincerely to myself; to hold to myself during the
weeks of dull anticipation. Nor need I care much what
people say. In fact I hand my compliment to that terribly
depressed woman, myself, whose head ached so often; who
w^ so entirely convinced a failure; for in spite of cvery-
^ng I think she brought it off and is to be congratulated.
How she did it, with her head like an old cloth, I don’t
know. But now for rest: and Gibbon.

A WRITER’S DIARY

Thursday, December ^ist

Tlicrc in front of me lie the proofs — the galleys — to go
off today, a sort of stinging nettle that I cover over. Nor
do I wish even to write about it here.

A divine relief has possessed me these last days — at being
quit of it — good or bad. And, for the first time since Febru-
ary I should say my mind has sprung up like a tree shaking
off a load. And I’ve plunged into Gibbon and read and
read, for the first time since Fcbruar>', I think. Now for
action and pleasure again and going about. I could make
some interesting and perhaps valuable notes on the abso-
lute necessity for me of my work. Always to be after some-
thing. I’m not sure that the intcnsivcncss and exclusiveness
of writing a long book is a possible state: I mean, if ever
in future I do such a thing — and 1 doubt it — I will force
myself to vary it with little articles. Anyhow, now I am
not going to think Can I write? I am going to rush into
unselfconsciousncss and work: at Gibbon first; then a few
little articles for America; then Roger and Three Guineas.
Which of the two comes first, how to dovetail, I don’t
know. Anyhow even if The Tears is a failure, I’ve thought
considerably and collected a little hoard of ideas. Perhaps
I’m now again on one of those peaks where I shall ^v^itc
two or three little books quickly; and then have another
break. At least I feel myself possessed of skill enough to go
on with. No emptiness. And in proof of this will go in, get
my Gibbon notes and begin a careful sketch of the article.

I 937

Thursday^ January 28th

Sunk once more in the happy tumultuous dream: that
is to say began Three Guineas this morning
and ended it and Can’t stop thinking it. My plan is to
>2 Oct. 1937 write it out now, without more palaver, and
(prowionally think perhaps it might be roughed in by
that »s). Easter; but I shall allow myself, make myself,

scribble a little article or two between whiles.
Then I hope to float over the horrid March 15th: wire
today to say Tears haven^t reached America. I must plate
myself against that sinking and mud. And so far as I can
tell, this method is almost too eficctive.

Thursday^ February i8lh

I have now written for three weeks at Three Guineas and

have done 38 pages. Now I’ve used up that vein momently

and want a few days change. At what? Can’t at the moment
think.

Saturday^ February 20th

I turn my eyes away from the Press as I go upstairs
because there are all the review copies of The Tears packed
and packing. They go out next week: this is my last week-
end of comparative peace. What do I anticipate with such
clammy coldness? I think chiefly that my friends won’t

conversation rather awkwardly.
I think I anticipate considerable lukewarmness among the

friendly reviewers — respectful tepidity;
^^^^"’hoop of Red Indian delight from
the Grigs who will joyfully and loudly
announce that this is the longdrawn
twaddle of a prim prudish bourgeois
mind, and say that now no one can take
Mrs. W. seriously again. But violence I

shan’t so much mind. What I think I shall

mind most is the awkwardness when I go, say to Tilton

875

I suppose what
I expect is that
they’ll say now
Mrs. W. has writ-
ten a long book
all about nothing.

276 A WRITER’S DIARY

or Charleston, and they don’t know what to say. And
since we shan’t get away till June I must expect a ve^ full
exposure to this damp firework atmosphere. They will say
it’s a tired book; a last effort . . . Well, now that I’ve
written that down I feel that even so I can exist in that
shadow. That is if I keep hard at work. And there’s no
lack of that. I discussed a book of illustrated incidents with
Nessa yesterday; we are going to produce 12 lithographs
for Christmas, printed by ourselves. As we were talking,
Margery Fry rang up to ask me to sec Julian Fry about
Roger. So that begins to press on me. Then L. wants if pos-
sible to have Three Guineas for the autumn: and I have my
Gibbon, my broadcast, and a possible leader on Biography
to fill in chinks. I plan to keep out of literary circles till
the mild boom is over. And this, waiting, under considera-
tion, is aficr all the worst. This time next month I shall
feel more at case. And it’s only now and then I mind now.

Sunday^ February 21st

I’m off again, after five days lapse (writing Faces and
Voices) on Three Guineas: after a most dismal hacking got a
little canter and hope now to spin ahead. Odd that one
sometimes docs a transition quite quickly. A quiet day for
a wonder — no one seen yesterday: so I went to Caledonian
Market, couldn’t find spoon shop: bought yellow gloves
3/- and stockings i/- and so home. Started reading French
again: Misanthrope and Colette’s memoirs given me last
summer by Janie: when I was in the dismal drowse and
couldn’t fix on that or anything. Today the reviewers

(oh d n this silly thought) have their teeth fixed in me;

but what care I for a goosefeather bed, etc. In fact, once
I get into the canter over Three Guineas I think I shall see
only the flash of the white rails and pound along to the
goal.

Sundayy February 28th

I’m so entirely imbued with Three Guineas that I can
hardly jerk myself away to write here. (Here in fact I

NINETEEN THIRTY-SEVEN 277

again dropped my pen to think about my next paragraph

universities) how will that lead to professions and so
on. It s a bad habit.

Sunday^ March yth

As will be seen on the last page my spiritual temperature
went up with a rush; why I don’t know, save that I’ve
been having a good gallop at Three Guineas. Now I have
broached the fatal week and must expect a sudden drop.
Its going to be pretty bad, I’m certain; but at tlic same
time I am convinced that the drop needn’t be fatal: that

is, the book may be damned, with faint
Wc have sold praise; but the point is that I myself know
5,300 before why it’s a failure, and that its failure is
publication. deliberate. I also know that I have reached

my point of view, as writer, as being. As
writer I am fitted out for another two books— TArre
Guineas and Roger (let alone articles): as being the interest
and safety of my present life are unthrowablc. This I have
honestly, proved this winter. It’s not a gesture. And
honestly the diminution of fame, that people aren’t any
longer enthusiastic, gives me the chance to obser\’e
quietly. Also I am in a position to hold myself aloof. I need
never seek out anyone. In short either way I’m safe, and
look forward, after the unavoidable tosses and tumbles of
the next ten days, to a slow, dark, fruitful spring, summer
and autumn. This is set down I hope once and for all. And
please to remember it on Friday when the reviews come in.

Friday y March 12th

Oh the relief! L. brought the Lit. Sup. to me in bed and
smd It s quite good. And so it is; and Time and Tide says
1 m a first rate novelist and a great lyrical poet. And I can
already hardly read through the reviews: but feel a little

nonsense; it does make an
cnect. Yet of wurse not in the least the eficct I meant.
But now, my dear, after all that agony, I’m free, whole;
round, can go full ahead. And so stop this cry of content

278 A WRITER’S DIARY

and sober joy. OfT to M.H. Julian back today. I use my
last five minutes before lunch to note that though I have
slipped the gall and fret and despair even of the past few
weeks wholly today, and shan’t I think renew them; I have
once more loaded myself with the strain of Three Guineas,
at which I have been writing hard and laboriously. So
now I’m straining to draw that cart across the rough
ground. It seems therefore that there is no rest; no sense
of It’s finished. One always harnesses oneself by instinct;
and can’t live without the strain. Now The Tears will com-
pletely die out from my mind.

Car mended. But rain pouring.

Sunday, March 14 th

I in such a twitter owing to two columns in the
Observer praising The Years that I can’t, as 1 foretold, go on
with Three Guineas. Why I even sat back just now and
thought W'ith pleasure of people reading that review. And
when I tliink of the agony 1 went through in this room,
just over a year ago . . . when it dawned on me that the
whole of three years’ work was a complete failure: and
then when I think of the mornings here when I used to
stumble out and cut up those proofs and write three lines
and then go back and lie on my bed — the worst summer
in my life, but at the same time the most illuminating —
it’s no wonder my hand trembles. What most pleases me
though is the obvious chance now since dc Sclincourt sees
it, that my intention in The Years may be not so entirely
muted and obscured as I feared. The T.L.S. spoke as if it
were merely the death song of the middle classes: a series
of exquisite impressions: but he sees that it is a creative, a
constructive book. Not that I’ve yet altogether read him:
but he has pounced on some of the key sentences. And this
means that it will be debated; and this means that Three
Guineas will strike very sharp and clear on a hot iron: so
that my immensely careful planning won’t be baulked by
time of life etc. as I had made certain. Making certain
however was an enormous discovery for me, though.

279

NINETEEN THIRTY-SEVEN
Friday y March igth

Now this is one of the strangest of my experiences —
“they” say almost universally that The Tears is a master-
piece. The Times says so. Bunny etc:
Something about a Howard Spring. If somebody had told
masterpiece and how mc I should Write this, even a week,
Mrs. W. has more to ago, let alone si.x months ago, I shotild
^veus than any have given a jump like a shot hare,
living novelist . . . How entirely and absolutely in-
astonishing fertility. credible it would have been! The

praise chorus began yesterday: by the
way I was walking in Covent Garden and found St. Pauls,
C.G., for the first time, heard the old char singing as she
cleaned the chairs in the ante hall; then went to Burnets;
chose stuff; bought the Evening Standard and found myself
glorified as I read it in the Tube. A calm quiet feeling,
glory: and I’m so steeled now I don’t think the flutter will
much worry me. Now I must begin again on Three Guineas.

Saturday^ March 2yth

No, I am not going to titivate Gibbon — that is condense
by a thousand words. Too much screw needed, and my
brain unstrung. Merely scribbling here: over a log fire, on
a cold but bright Easter morning; sudden shafts of sun, a
scatter of snow on the hills early; sudden storms, ink black,
octopus pouring, coming up; and the rooks fidgetting and
pecking on the elm trees. As for the beauty, as I always say
when I walk the terrace after breakfast, too much for one
pair of eyes. Enough to float a whole population in happi-
n(^, if only they would look. Curiously a combination,
this garden, with the church, and the cross of the church
black against Ashcham Hill. That is all the elements of the
English brought together, accidentally. We came down
on Thursday, packed in the rush in London; cars spinning
all along the roads: yesterday at last perfect freedom from
telephones and reviews, and no one rang up. I began
Lard Ormont and his Aminta and found it so rich, so knotted,
so alive, and muscular after the pale little fiction
I’m used to, that, alas, it made me wish to write fiction

aBo A WRITER’S DIARY

again. Meredith underrated. I like his effort to escape
plain prose. And he had humour and some insight too —
more tlian they allow him now. Also Gibbon. And so I’m
well fitted out; but can’t write more than this without the
old tightening and throbbing at the back of the head.

Friday, April 2nd

How I interest myself! Quite set up and perky today
with a mind brimming because I was so damnably de-
pressed and smacked on the check by Edwin Muir in the
Listener and by Scott James in the Life and Letters on Friday.
They both gave me a smart snubbing: E. M. says The
Years is dead and disappointing. So in effect did S. James.
All the lights sank; my reed bent to the ground. Dead and
disappointing — so I’m found out and that odious rice pud-
ding of a book is what I thought it — a dank failure. No life
in it. Much inferior to the bitter truth and intense origin-
ality of Miss Compton Burnett. Now this pain woke me at
4 a.m. and I suffered acutely. All day driving to Janet and
back I was under the cloud. But about 7 it lifted; there
was a good review, of 4 lines, in the Enipire Review. The
best of my books: did that help? I don’t think very much.
But the delight of being exploded is quite real. One feels
braced for some reason; amused; round; combative; more
than by praise.

Saturday, April yd

Now I have to broadcast on 29th. It will go like this:
can’t be a craft of words. Am going to disregard the title
and talk about words: why they won’t let themselves be
made a craft of. They tell the truth: they aren’t useful.
That there should be two languages: fiction and fact.
Words are inhuman . . . won’t make money — need
privacy. Why. For their embraces, to continue the race.
A dead word. The purists and the impurists. These are
only impressions, not fixations. I respect words too.
Associations of words. Felicity brings in absent thee. We
can easily make new words. Squish squash: crick crack.
But we can’t use them in writing.

28 i

NINETEEN THIRTY-SEVEN

Sunday^ April 4th

Another curious idiosyncracy. Maynard lliinks The
Tears my best book: thinks one scene, E. and Crosby, beats
Tchekov’s Cherry Orchard — and this opinion tliough from
the centre, from a very fine mind, doesn’t flutter me as
much as Muir’s blame; it sinks in slowly and deeply. It’s
not a vanity feeling; the other is; the other will die as soon
as the week’s number of the Listener is past. L. went to
Tilton and had a long quiet cronies talL Maynard said
that he thought The Tears very moving: more tender than
any of my books: did not puzzle him like The Waves;]
symbolism not a worry; very beautiful; and no more said
than was needed; hadn’t yet finished it. But how compose,
the two opinions; it’s my most human book; and most,
inhuman? Oh to forget all this and write — as I mus^
tomorrow.

Friday y April gth

“Such happiness wherever it is known is to be pitied for
m surely blind,” Yes, but my happiness isn’t blind. That
is the achievement, I was thinking between 3 and 4 this
morning, of my 55 years. I lay awake so calm, so content,
as if I’d stepped off the whirling world into a deep blue
quiet space and there open eyed existed, beyond harm;
armed against all that can happen. I have never had this
feeling before in all my life; but I have had it several times
since last summer: when I reached it, in my worst depres-
sion, as if I stepped out, throwing aside a cloak, lying in
bed, looking at the stars, these nights at Monk’s House.
Of course it ruffles, in the day, but there it is. There it was
yesterday when old Hugh came and said nothing about
The Years.

Mondayy June ist. Monk's House

I have at last got going with Three Guineas — after five
days* grind, re-copying, to some extent re-writing; my
poor old brain hums again — largely I think because I had

282

A WRITER’S DIARY

still

is top of
the list.

a good long walk yesterday and so routed the drowse —
it was very hot. At any rate I must use this page as a run-
ning ground — for I can’t screw all the three hours; I must
relax and race here the last hour. That’s the worst of
writing — its waste. What can I do with the last hour of
my morning? Dante again. But oh how my heart leaps up
to tliink that never again shall I be harnessed to a long
book. No. Always short ones in future. The long book
still won’t be altogether downed — its reverbera-
Monday, tions grumble. Did I say — no, the London
June i4ih. days were too light, too hot, and distracted for
The Tears this book — that H. Brace wrote and said they
were happy to find that The Tears is the best-
selling novel in America? This was confirmed
by my place at the head of the list in the
Herald Tribune. They have sold 25,000— my
record, easily. (Now I am dreaming of Three Guineas.) We

think if we make money of buying per-
haps an annuity. The great desirable is
not to have to earn money by writing. I
am doubtful if I shall ever write another
novel. Certainly not unless under great
compulsion such as The Tears inspired
in me. Were I another person, I would
say to myself, Please write criticism;
biography; invent a new form for both; also write some

completely unformal fiction: short: and
poetry. Fate has here a hand in it, for when
I’ve done Three Guineas — which I hope to
have written, not yet for publication though,
in August — I intend to put the script aside
and write Roger. What I think best would be
to work hard at Three Guineas for a month — June: than

begin reading and re-reading my Roger
notes. By the way, I have been sharply
abused in Scrutiny who, L. says, calls me a
cheat in The Waves and The Tears\ most
intelligently (and highly) praised by F.
Faulkner in America — and that’s all. (I
mean that’s all I need I think write about reviews now: I

Monday
July I2th.

The Tears is
still top of
the list and
has been weekly.

August 23rd.
Teats now
2nd or 3rd.

9 editions.

Yesterday,
October 22nd,
it was last on
the list.

NINETEEN THIRTY-SEVEN 283

suspect tlie clever young man is going to enjoy downing
me — so be it: but in private Sally Graves and Stephen
Spender approve: so, to sum up, I don’t know, this is
honest, where I stand; but intend to think no more of it.
Gibbon was rejected by the Republic^ so I shall send no
more to America. Nor will I write articles at all except for
the Lit. Sup. for whom I am going now to do Congreve.)

Tuesday^ June 22nd

Isn’t it shameful to write here first thing, not to tackle
Congreve? But my brain after talking to Kliss Sarton, to
Murray, to Ann gave out after dinner, so that I couldn't
read Love for Love. And I won’t do Three Guineas till Mon*
day — till I’ve had a quiet breather. Then the Prof.
Chapter: then the final. So now to draw the blood off that
brain to another part — according to H. Nicolson’s pre-
scription, which is the right one. I would like to write a
dream story about the top of a mountain. Now why? About
lying in the snow; about rings of colour; silence; and tlie
solitude. I can’t though. But shan’t I, one of these days,
indulge myself in some short releases into tliat world?
Short now for ever. No more long grinds: only sudden
intensities. If I could think out another adventure. Oddly
enough I sec it now ahead of me — in Charing Cross Road
yesterday — as to do with books: some new combination.
Brighton? A round room on the pier — and people shop-
ping, missing each other — a story Angelica told in tlie
summer. But how docs this make up with criticism? I’m
trying to get the four dimensions of the mind . . . life in
connection with emotions from literature. A day’s walk —
a mind’s adventure; something like that. And it’s useless
to repeat my old experiments: they must be new to be
experiments.

Wednesday^ June 23rd

It’s ill writing after reading Love for Love — a masterpiece.
I never knew how good it is. And what exhilaration there
is in reading these masterpieces. This superb hard English!

284 A WRITER’S DIARY

Yes, always keep the classics at hand to prevent flop. 1
can’t write out my feeling, though; must decant it tomor-
row in an article. But neither can I settle to read poor
Rosemary’s verses, as I should with a view to this evening.
How could L. S. in D.N.B. deny C. feeling, pain — more
in that one play than in all Thackeray: and the indecency
often honesty. But enough — I went shopping, whitebait
hunting, to Sclfridgcs yesterday and it grew roasting hot
and I was in black — such astonishing chops and changes
this summer — often one’s caught in a storm, frozen or
roasted. As I reached 52, a long trail of fugitives — like a
caravan in a desert — came through the square: Spaniards
flying from Bilbao, which has fallen, I suppose. Somehow
brought tears to my eyes, though no one seemed surprised.
Children trudging along; women in London cheap jackets
with gay handkerchiefs on their heads, young men, and
all carrying either cheap eases, and bright blue enamel
kettles, very large, and canisters, fitted I suppose with
gifts from some charity — a shuffling trudging procession,
flying — impelled by machine gun in Spanish fields to
trudge through Tavistock Square, along Gordon Square,
then where?— clasping their enamel kettles. A strange
spectacle. They went on, knowing which way: I suppose
someone directed them. One boy was chatting, the others
absorbed, like people on the trek. A reason why we can’t
write like Congreve I suppose.

Sunday^ July xith

A gap: not in life, but in comment. I have been in full
flood every morning with Three Guineas. Whether I shall
finish by August becomes doubtful. But I am in the middle
of my magic bubble. Had I time I would like to describe
the curious glance of the world — the pale disillusioned
world — that I get so violently now and then, when the
wall thins — either I’m tired or interrupted. Then I think
of Julian near Madrid: and so on. Margaret LI. Davies
writes that Janet ' is dying, and will I write on her for
The Times — a curious Uiought, rather: as if it mattered

* Janet Case, an old friend, who taught Virginia Woolf Greek.

NINETEEN THIRTY-SEVEN 285

who wrote, or not. But this flooded me with the idea of
Janet yesterday. 1 think writing, my writing, is a species
of mediumship. I become tlie person.

Monday^ July igth

Just back from M.H. but I can't and won't write any-
thing — too bothered and dithered. Also, I screwed my
head tight — too tight — knocking together a little obituary
ofjanet for The Times. And couldn’t make it take the folds
well; too stiff and mannered. She died. Three notes from
Empliie ' this morning. She died on Thursday, shut her
eyes and “looks so beautiful”. Today they are cremating
her, and she had had printed a little funeral service — with
the death day left blank. No words: an adagio from
Beethoven and a text about gentleness and faith which I
would have included had I known. But what does my
writing matter? There is something fitting and complete
about the memory of her, thus consummated. Dear old
harum scarum Emphie will have her solitary moments to
herself. To us she will always be a scatterbrain; yet to me
very touching and I remember that phrase in her letter,
how she ran into Janet’s room at midnight, and they had
a nice little time together. She was always running in.
Janet was the steadfast contemplative one, anchored in
some private faith which didn’t correspond with the
world’s. But she was oddly inarticulate. No hand for
worcls. Her letters, save that the last began “My beloved
Virginia”, always cool and casual. And how I loved her,
at Hyde Park Gate: and how I went hot and cold going to
Windm^ Hill: and how great a visionary part she has
played in my life, till the visionary became a part of the
fictitious, not of the real life.

Friday y August 6th

^ Will another novel ever swim up? If so, how? The only
hint I have towards it is tliat it’s to be dialogue: and poetry:
and prose; all quite distinct. No more long closely written

* Janet’s sister.

286 A WRITER’S DIARY

books. But 1 have no impulse; and shall wait; and shan’t
mind if the impulse never formulates; though I suspect
one of these days I shall get that old rapture. I don’t want
to write more fiction. I want to explore a new criticism.
One thing I think proved, I shall never write to “please”,
to convert; now am entirely and for ever my own mistress.

Tuesday^ August 17th

Not much to say. It’s true, the only life this summer is
in the brain. I get excited writing. Three hours pass like
10 minutes. This morning I had a moment of the old rap-
ture — think of it! — over copying TJu Duchess and the
Jeweller for Chambrun, N.Y. I had to send a synopsis. I
expect he’ll regret the synopsis. But there was the old
excitement, even in that little extravagant flash — more
than in criticism I think.

Happily — if that’s the word — I get these electric shocks
— Cables asking me to write. Chambrun offer for a

9,000 word story. And I at once begin making up adven-
tures — ten days of adventures — a man rowing with black
knitted stockings on his arms. Do I ever write, even here,
for my own eye? If not, for whose eye? An interesting
question, rather.

Tuesdayy October 12th. London

Yes, we are back at Tavistock Square; and I’ve never
written a word since September 27th. That shows how
every morning was crammed to the margin witli Three
Guineas. This is the first morning I write, because at 12,
ten minutes ago, I wrote what I think is tlic last page of
Three Guineas. Oh how violently I have been gsilloping
through these mornings! It has pressed and spurted out of
me. If that’s any proof of virtue, like a physical volcano.
And my brain feels cool and quiet after the expulsion. I’ve
had it sizzling now since — well I was thinking of it at
Delphi I remember. And tlicn I forced myself to put it
into fiction first. No, the fiction came first. TTie Tears. And
how I held myself back, all through the terrible depression.

NINETEEN THIRTY-SEVEN 287

and refused, save for some frantic notes, to tap it until The
Years — that awdlil burden — was off me. So that I have
deserved this gallop. And taken time and thought too.
But whether it is good or bad, how can I tell? I must now
add the bibliography and notes. And have a week’s
respite.

Tuesday^ October jgth

It came over me suddenly last night as I was reading
The Shooting Party — tlie story that I’m to send to America,
H. B. — that I saw the form of a new novel. It’s to be first
the statement of the theme: then the restatement: and so
on: repeating the same story: singling out this and then
that, until the central idea is stated.

This might also lend itself to my book of criticism. But
how I don’t know, being very jaded in the brain, try to
discover. What happened was this: when I finished the
S.P.^ I thought, now that the woman has called a taxi; I
will go on to meet, say, Christabcl, at T. Square who tells the
story again: or I will expatiate upon my own idea in tel-
ling the story; or I will find some other person at the S.P.
whose life I will tell: but all the scenes must be controlled
and radiate to a centre. 1 think this is a possible idea; and
would admit of doing it in short bursts: could be a con-
centrated small book: could contain many varieties of
mood. And possibly criticism. I must keep the idea at the
back of my mind for a year or two, wliile I do Roger etc.

1938

Sunday^ January gth

Yes, I will force myself to begin this cursed year. For
one thing I have “finished” the last chapter of Three
Guineas and for the first time since I don’t know when have
stopped writing in the middle of the morning.

Friday^ February 4th

A ten minutes spin here. L. gravely approves Three
Guineas. Thinks it an extremely clear analysis. On the whole
Tm content. One can’t expect emotion, for as he says, it’s
not on a par with the novels. Yet I think it may have more
practical value. But I’m much more indifferent, that’s
true: feel it a good piece of donkeywork, and don’t think
it affects me either way as the novels do.

Tuesday^ April nth

Anyhow, on April ist I think, I started Roger-, and with
the help of his memoirs have covered tlie time till Clifton.
Much of it donkey work; and I suppose to be rewritten.
Still there is 20 pages put down, after being so long put off.
And it is an immense solace to have this sober drudgery to
take to instantly and so tide over the horrid anticlimax of
Three Guineas. I didn’t get so much praise from L. as I
hoped. He had to swallow the notes at a gulp though. And
I suspect I shall find the page proofs (due tomorrow) a
chill bath of disillusionment. But I wanted — how violently
— how persistently, pressingly, compulsorily 1 can’t say —
to write this book: and have a quiet composed feeling: as
if I had said my say: take it or leave it: I’m quit of that:
free for fresh adventures — at the age of 56. Last night I
began making up again: summers night: a complete
whole: that’s my idea. Roger surrounds me: .and then to
M.H. on Thursday, and that infernal bundle of proofs.

988

NINETEEN THIRTY-EIGHT 289

Am I right though in thinking that it has some importance
— Three Guineas — as a point of view: shows industry'; fer-
tility; and is, here and there, as “well written” (consider-
ing the technical problems — quotations, arguments etc.)
as any of my rather skimble skamble works! I think there’s
more to it than to a Room: which, on rereading, seems to
me a little egotistic, flaunting, sketchy: but has its bril-
liance — its speed. I’m suspicious of the vulgarity of the
notes: of a certain insistence.

Tuesday, April 26th

We had our Easter at M.H.: but as for the sun, it never
shone; was colder than Christmas; a grudging lead-
coloured sky; razor wind; winter clothes; proofs; much
acute despair; curbed however by the aid of divine philo-
sophy; a joy in diseovering Mandcville’s Bees (this really
a fruitful book; tlie very book I want). Then rings up;
to warn you: Have you had a letter from Pipsy? * Oiioline *
is dead. They told her P. might die, and the shoek killed
her: and he’s asking you to write about her (with Mr.
Wicks and Mr. Mussell exploring the attics for the new
room). So I had to write; and the horrid little pellet
screwed my brain; leaves it giddy. Yet in spite of that here
am I sketching out a new book; only don’t please im-
pose that huge burden on me again, I implore. Let it be
random and tentative: something I can blow of a morning,
to relieve myself of Roger: don’t, I implore, lay down a
scheme; call in all the cosmic immensities; and force my
tired and diffident brain to embrace another whole —
all parts contributing — not yet awhile. But to amuse
myself, let me note: Why not Poyntzet Hall:^ a centre: all
literature discussed in connection with real little incon-
gruous living humour: and anything that comes into my
head; but “I” rejected: “We” substituted: to whom at the
end there shall be an invocation? “We” . . . the composed
of many different things ... we all life, all art, all waifs
and strays — a rambling capricious but somehow unified

‘ Philip Morrell. • Lady Ottoline Morrell.

* Became Between the Acts.

A WRITER’S DIARY

290

whole — the present state of my mind? And English
country'; and a scenic old house — and a terrace where
nursemaids w'alk — and people passing — and a perpetual
variety and change from intensity to prose, and facts —
and notes; and — but eno’! I must read Roger: and go to
Ott’s memorial scr\’icc, representing also T. S. Eliot at his
absurd command. 2.30 at Martin’s in the Fields.

Ottoline’s burial science. Oh dear, oh dear the lack of
intensity; the wailing and mumbling; the fumbling with
bags; the shufBing; the vast brown mass of respectable old
South Kensington ladies. And then the hymns; and the
clergyman with a bar of medals across his surplice; and
the orange and blue windows; and a toy Union Jack
sticking from a cranny. ^Vhat all this had to do with
Ottolinc, or our feelings? Save that the address was to the
point: a critical study, written presumably by Philip and
delivered, very resonantly, by Mr. Speaight the actor: a
sober, and secular speech, which made one at least think
of a human being, though the reference to her beautiful
voice caused one to think of that queer nasal moan: how-
ever that too was to the good in deflating immensities.
P.’s secretary buttonholed me and told me to sit high up.
The pew was blocked by a vast furred lady who said, “I’m
afraid I can’t move” — as indeed seemed the fact. So I
stationed myself rather behind: near enough though to
see the very well set up back of P. in his thick coat; and his
red ram’s head turned now and then looking along the
ranks; also I pressed his hand, simulated, I fear, more
emotion than I felt when he asked me, had I liked the
address? and so slowly moved out on to the steps — past
Jack and Mary, Sturge Moores, Molly etc: Gcrtler
having tears in his eyes; various household staffs: was then
pounced on and pinioned by Lady Oxford: who was hard
as whipcord; upright; a little vacant in the eye, in spite of
make up which made it shine. She said she had expostu-
lated with Ott. about the voice; Mere affectation. But a
wonderful woman. Tell me, though, why did her friends
quarrel with her? Pause. She was exigeante^ Duncan volun-
teered at last. And so Margot refused to ask further; and
modulated into stories of Symonds and Jowett, when I

NINETEEN THIRTY-EIGHT 291

bantered licr on her obituary'. Mine, of Ott. for The Times,
has not appeared, nor do I much regret. . . .

\Valked in Dulwich yesterday and lost my brooch by
way of a freshener when confronted witli the final proofs
just today (April 28th) done: and to be sent this afternoon:
a book I shall never look at again. But I now feel entirely
free. ^Vhy? Have committed myself, am afraid of nothing.
Can do anything I like. No longer famous, no longer on a
pedestal: no longer hawked in by societies: on my own,
forever. That’s my feeling: a sense of expansion, like put-
ting on slippers. Why this should be so, why I feel myself
enfranchised till death, and quit of all humbug, when I
daresay it’s not a good book and will excite nothing but
mild sneers; and how very inconsequent and egotistical
V. W. is — why, why I can’t analyse: being fluttered this
morning.

The difliculty is that I get so absorbed in this fantastic
Pointz Hall I can’t attend to Roger. So what am I to do?
This however is only my first day of freedom: and I have
been rendered self-conscious by a notice of Three Guineas
on the front page of the new bloated T.L.S. Well it can’t
be helped; and I must cling to my “freedom” — that
mysterious hand that was reached out to me about four
years ago.

Tuesday f May ^th

Pouring now; the drought broken; the worst spring on
record; my pens diseased, even the new box; my eyes ache
with Rogn and I’m a little appalled at the prospect of the
grind this book will be. I must somehow shorten and
loosen; I carCt (remember) stretch it to a long painstaking
literal book: later I must generalise and let fly. But tlien,
what about all the letters? How can one cut loose from
facts, when there they arc, contradicting my theories? A
problem. But I’m convinced I can’t, physically, strain
after an R.A. portrait. What was I going to say with this
defective nib?

A WRITER’S DIARY

292

Friday^ May 20th

Time and again I have meant to write down my
expectations, dreads and so on, waiting the publication on
— I think June 2nd— of Three Guineas: but haven’t, because
what with living in the solid world o£ Roger and then (again
this morning) in the airy world of Poyntz Hall I feel
extremely litUe. And don’t want to rouse feeling. What
I’m afraid of is the taunt charm and emptiness. The book
I wrote with such violent feeling to relieve that immense
pressure will not dimple the surface. That is my fear. Also
I’m uneasy at taking this role in the public eye — afraid of
autobiography in public. But the fears are entirely out-
balanced (this is honest) by the immense relief and peace
I have gained and enjoy this moment. Now I am quit of
that poison and excitement. Nor is that all. For having
spat it out, my mind is made up. I need never recur or
repeat. I am an outsider. I can take my way: experiment
with my own imagination in my own way. The pack may
howl, but it shall never catch me. And even if the pack
— reviewers, friends, enemies — pays me no attention or
sneers, still I’m free. This is the actual result of that
spiritual conversion (I can’t bother to get the right words)
in the autumn of 1933 or 4 — when I rushed through Lon-
don buying, I remember, a great magnifying glass, from
sheer ecstasy, near Blackfriars: when I gave the man who
played the harp half a crown for talking to me about his
life in the tube station. The omens are mixed: L. is less
excited than I hoped: Ncssa highly ambiguous: Miss
Hepworth and Mrs. Nicholls say, “Women owe a great
deal to Mrs. Woolf” and I have promised Pippa to supply
books. Now for R.’s letters. Monk’s House at the moment
windy and cold.

Tuesday y May lyth

I’m pleased this morning because Lady Rhondda writes
that she is profoundly excited and moved by Three
Guineas. Thco Bosanquet who has a review copy read her
extracts. And she thinks it may have a great eflcct, and

NINETEEN THIRTY-EIGHT 293

si^s herself my grateful outsider. A good omen; because
tills shows tliat certain people will be stirred; will think;
will discuss; it won’t altogetlicr be frittered away. Of
course Lady R. is already partly on my side; but again as
she’s highly patriotic and citizenlike she might have been
roused to object. It’s on the cards that it will make more
splash among the inkpots than I thought — feeling very
dim and cold these last weeks, and indiflerent too; and
oblivious of the great excitement and intensity with which
(certainly) I wrote. But as the whole of Europe may be in
flames — it’s on the cards. One more shot at a policeman
and the Germans, Czcclis, French will begin the old
horror. The 4th of August may come next week. At the
moment there is a lull. L. says K. Martin says we say (The
P.M.) that we will fight tliis time. Hitler therefore is chew-
ing his little bristling moustache. But the whole thing
trembles: and my book may be like a moth dancing over a
bonfire — consumed in less than one second.

Friday, May 2yth

It’s odd to be working at half cock after all those months
of high pressure. The result is half an hour every day to
write here. Roger I’m retyping: and shall tlten sketch
Walpole. I have just been signing in bright green ink
those circulars. But I will not expatiate on the dreariness
of doing things one ought to do. A letter, grateful, from
Bruce Richmond, ending my 30 years connection with
hirn — the Lit. Sup. How pleased I used to be when L.
called me “You’re wanted by the Major Journal!” and I
ran down to the telephone to take my almost weekly orders
at Hogarth House! I learnt a lot of my craft writing for
him: how to compress; how to enliven; and also was made
to read with a pen and notebook, seriously. I am now
waiting for today week — when that’s over, my swell will
subside. And can’t I prophesy? On the whole I shall get
more pain than pleasure; I shall mind the sneers more than
I shall enjoy Lady Rhondda’s enthusiasm. There’ll be
many sneers — some very angry letters. Some silences. And
then — three weeks yesterday — we shall be off. And by

294 A WRITER’S DIARY

July 7tli when we come back— or sooner, for we dread too
many hotels — it will be over, almost entirely; and then
for two years I think I shall publish nothing, save American
articles. And this week of waiting is the worst, and it’s not
very bad — nothing in the least comparable to the horror
of The Tears: (that deadened into indifference, so sure was
I of failure).

Tuesday^ May 31st

A letter from Pippa. She is enthusiastic. So this is the
last load off my mind — which weighed it rather heavy, for
I felt if I had written all that, if it was not to her liking I
should have to brace myself pretty severely in my own
private esteem. But she says it’s the very thing for which
they have panted: and the poison is now drawn. Now I can
face the music, or donkeys bray or gcescs cackle of the
Reviews so indifferently that (truthfully) I find myself
forgetting that they’ll all be out this weekend. Never have
I faced review day so composedly. Also I don’t much mind
my Cambridge friends cither. Maynard may have a gibe;
but what care I?

Friday ^ June 3rd. Rodmell

This is the coming out day of Three Guineas. And the
Lit. Sup. has two columns and a leader; and the Referee a
great black bar Woman declares sex war, or some such
caption. And it makes so much less difference than any
other cackle on coming out day that I’ve written quietly
at Poyntz Hall: haven’t even troubled to read R. Lynd, nor
look at the Ref. nor read through The Times article. It’s
true I have a sense of quiet and relief. But no wish to read
reviews, or hear opinions.

I wonder why this is? Because it’s a fact I want to com-
municate rather than a poem? I daresay something of the
kind. Mercifully we have 50 miles of felt between our-
selves and the din. It is sunny, warm, dry and like a June
day but will rain later. Oh it pleased me that the Lit. Sup.
says I’m the most brilliant pamphleteer in England. Also

NINETEEN THIRTY-EIGHT 295

that this book may mark an epoch if taken seriously. Also
that the Listener says I am scrupulously fair, and puri-
tanically deny myself flights. But that’s about all.

Anyhow that’s the end of six years floundering, stri\’ing,
much agony, some ecstasy: lumping the I'ears and Three
Guineas together as one book — as indeed they arc. And now
I can be off again, as indeed I long to be. Oh to be private,
alone, submerged.

Sunday^ June 5th

This is the mildest childbirth I have ever had. Compare
it with The Tearsl I wake knowing the yap will begin and
never bother my head. Yesterday I had Time and Tide, and
various London obscurities: today Observer: Selincourt. A
terrible indictment. Sunday Times, New Statesman and
Spectator, reserved for next week presumably. So the
temperature remains steady. I foretell a great many letters
on Tuesday night: some anonymous and abusive. But I
have already gained my point: I’m taken seriously, not
dismissed as a charming prattler as I feared. The Times
yesterday had a paragraph headed “Mrs. Woolf’s call to
women” a serious challenge that must be answered by all
thinkers— or something like that: prefacing the Lit. Sup.
advt: unknown before I think; and must be some serious
intention behind it.

Thursday, June i6th. Baldock

Stop to light a pipe on the Icknield \Vay, a scrubby
street of yellow villas. Now St. James Deeping. After
Croyland, a magnificent moulded Church. Now very hot:
flat; an old gent, fishing. Spread out and exposed. River
above road level. On now to Gainsborough. Lunch at
Peterborough: factory chimneys. Railway gate opened; off
again. Gainsborough. A red Venetian palace rising among
bungalows: in a square of unkempt grass. Long windows,
leaning walls. A maze of little lanes. A strange forgotten
town. Sunday at Housesteads. Thom trees: sheep. The

age A WRITER'S DIARY

wall and white headed boys in front. Miles and miles of
lavender campagna. One thread coloured frail road cros-
sing the vast uncultivated lonely land. Today all cloud and
blue and wind. The wall is a wave with a sharp crest, as of
a wa\ e drawn up to break. Then flat. Bogs under the crest.
Waiting now for the rain to stop, for it blew and rained
that day on the wall. Now a few miles from Corbridge
waiting in the middle of the moor. Very black. Larks
singing. Lunch deferred. A party of ninety lunching at
the Inn at Piercebridge. A sense of local life i8th century
inn diners to celebrate some sport. So on to a Manse in a
garden: a very solid private house that takes in residents.
Hot ham and fruit, but real cream, looking over an ugly
range. The country early today was fen Wash country.
Then the Pcnnincs. These arc shrouded in a heat mist.
Larks singing. L. now looking for water for Sally * (but
this should precede the wall). Sunday. Sitting by the road
under the Roman wall while L. cleans sparking plugs.
And I have been reading translations of Greek verse and
thinking idly. When one reads the mind is like an aero-
plane propeller invisibly quick and unconscious — a state
seldom achieved. Not a bad Oxford introduction, trying
to be in touch, up to date: scholarly but Oxford. Cows
moving to the top of the hill by some simultaneous sym-
pathy. One draws the others. Wind rocks the car. Too
windy to climb up and look at the lake. Reason why the
hills arc still Roman — the landscape immortal. . . what
they saw 1 see. The wind, tlie June wind, the water, and
snow. Sheep bedded in the long turf like pearls. No shade,
no shelter. Romans looking over the border. Now nothing
comes.

Tuesday. Now in Midlothian. Stopping for petrol. On
the way to Stirling. Scotch mist driven across the trees.
Normal Scots weather. Great hills. Ugly puritanical
houses. The Hydro built go years ago. A woman called
and said she had seen Mrs. Woolf walking in Melrose on
Saturday. Second sight as I was not there. Galashiels a
manufacturing town. Hideous. Fragments of talk over-
heard at the Hydro Melrose. SoR voiced old Scotch ladies

^ A spaniel.

NINETEEN THIRTY-EIGHT 297

sitting in their accredited places by the fire under the
window. “I was wondering why you walked about with
an umbrella.” One who is stitching, “I wonder if I should
wash it and begin again. I’m worlang on a dirty ground.”
Here I interpose: We stopped at Dryburgh to see Scott
grave. It is under the broken palanquin of a ruined chapel.
Just enough roof to cover it. And there he lies — Sir ^VaIter
Scott, Baronet. In a caddy made of chocolate blancmange
with these words cut large and plain on the lid. As Dame
Charlotte who is buried beside him is covered with the
same chocolate slab it must have been his taste. And
there’s something fitting in it. For the Abbey is impressive
and the river running at the bottom of the field. And all
the old Scots ruins standing round him. I picked a white
syringa in memory but lost it. An airy place but Scott is
much pressed together. The col. by his side and Lockhart
his son in law at his feet. Then there’s Haig’s stuck about
with dark red poppies. But the old ladies are discussing
Dr. John Brown whose brother was a doctor in Melrose.
Soon one’s head would ache and one’s senses fuddle. One
would eat too many cakes at tea and there’s a huge dinner
at 7. “I think he’s very nice — her husband. She’s got a
personality of her own. A very nice cir-r-cle. Where do
they live? Retired to Perthshire. . . . I’m three stitches
out . . . Miss Peace came along to the reading room with
her friend and wanted a fire. Couldn’t she have rung the
bell or something? Out you come! (unpicking the knitting.)
There so much opened up now. Two years ago was the
Centenary (of Dryburgh?). I went to the meeting. There
was a service — most interesting. All the Ministers. Five on
the platform. Possibly the Moderator. At any rate it was
very nice and it was a beautiful day and the place was very
full. The birds joined in the music. Alan Haig’s birthday.
There was a service at Dryburgh. I like D. I’ve not been
to Jedburgh — awfully pretty.” No, I don’t think I can
write it all out. The old creatures are sitting on a sofa not
much older than I am I daresay. Yes, they’re about 65.
“Edinburgh’s nice — I like it. We have to go away before
we appreciate it. You have to go away from your birth-
place. Then when you go back everything changed. A

A WRITER’S DIARY

298

year docs ii — two years do it. I should leave it (of the work)
and see the cfTcct afterwards. What church d’you go to?
Church of Scotland — not to St. Giles. It used to be the
Tron. We go to St. Giles. It was St. George’s parish — my
husband was an elder in St. George’s parish Charlotte
Square. D’you like ^Vaugh? 1 like him in a way I don’t
hear him, and it’s a common complaint. He gives very hard
sermons — you can’t take anything away. The choir’s
beautiful. I can’t get a sitting from which you can hear.

I feel it infra dig rushing with the crowd. The crowd
hasn’t reached — I’ve just got to sit still — I’m having a
service — I hear the prayers, the young men the music. It
was pretty well where they come in from the Tliistle
chapel. Tliey passed me bang. I rose and moved along.
There arc some scats the people never come to, and often
the best scats. I like St. Giles, a lovely old place. The old
lady whose scat I had told me the church was all reno-
vated. Chambers did it, aitd when it came to the opening
not a scat retained for the Chambers family. Badly
arranged. Someone provided scats for them. A stupid
thing. Always some higher church alteration. I like the
episcopal. Ifit be episcopal let it be: if Church ofScotland,
let it be Church of Scotland. Dr. Waugh’s brother is at
Dundee. He would like Roscncath. Someone said that the
minister at Roscncath is delicate.”

Wind rages: trees leafless: bannocks and a blue pound
note the only changes. Glencoe. Menacing. Leaf green
hills, islands floating. A moving string of cars; no inhabi-
tants, only tourists . . . Ben Nevis with stripes of snow. The
sea. Little boats: feeling of Greece and Cornwall. Yellow
flags and great foxgloves: no farms, villages or cottages: a
dead land over-run with insects. An old man who could
not get up from his chair. Two other ladies, her legs over-
flowing her shoes. All dress for dinner, and sit in the draw-
ing room. This was the good inn at Crianlarich. Lake with
hanging stalactites green trees in the middle. Bowl of the
hills. Hills with velvet leaf green. The Bannington of
Eaton Place. She had found winter green for her father-
in-law, a botanist. Sky light at ii. Bad review of Three
Guineas by G. M. Young. Pain lasted ten minutes: over

299

was

NINETEEN THIRTY-EIGHT

then. Loch Ness swallowed Mrs. Hambro. She
wearing pearls.

And then, sick of copying, I tore the rest of it up — a
lesson, next journey, not to make endless pencil notes that
need copying. Some too I regret. Some Boswell experi-
ments in inns. Also tlie woman whose grandmother
worked for the Wordsworths and remembered liim as an
old man in a cloak with a red lining muttering poetry.
Sometimes he would pat the children on the head but
never spoke to them. On the other hand, H. Coleridge
was always drinking at the pub with the men.

Thursday, July yth

Oh the appalling grind of getting back to Roger, after
these violent oscillations, Three Guineas and P.H. How can
I concentrate upon minute facts in letters? This morning
I have forced myself back to Failand in 1888. But Jumbo *
last night threw cold water on the whole idea of biography
of those who have no lives. Roger had, she says, no life
that can be written. I daresay this is true. And here am
I sweating over minute facts. It’s all too minute and tied
down — documented. Is it to be done on this scale? Is he
interesting to other people in tliat light? I think I will
go on doggedly till I meet him myself — 1909 — and then
attempt something more fictitious. But must plod on
through all these letters till then. I think contrast the two
all the time. My view: his — and other people’s. And then
his books.

Saturday, August yth

Rather enjoy doing P.H. That’s something, for it won’t
please anyone, if anyone should ever read it. Ann Wat-
kins, by the way, says the Atlantic readers haven’t read
enough of Walpole to understand my article. Refused.

* Majjorie Strachey.

300 A WRITER’S DIARY

Wedmsday^ August lyth

No I won’t go on doing Roger — abstracting with blood
and sweat from the old Articles — right up to lunch. I
will steal 25 minutes. In fact I’ve been getting absorbed
in Roger. Didn’t I say I wouldn’t? Didn’t L. say there’s
no hurry? Except that I’m 56; and think that Gibbon
then allowed himself 12 years, and died instantly. Still
why always chafe and urge and strain at the leash? What
I want is a season of calm weather. Contemplation. I get
this sometimes about 3 a.m. when I always wake, open
my window and look at the sky over the apple trees. A
tearing wind last night. Every sort of scenic effect — a
prodigious toppling and clearing and massing, after the
sunset that was so amazing L. made me come and look
out of the bathroom window — a flurry of red clouds; hard;
a water colour mass of purple and black, soft as a water
ice; then hard slices of intense green stone; blue stone and
a ripple of crimson light. No: that won’t convey it: and
then there were the trees in the garden; and the reflected
light: our hot pokers burning on the edge of the steep.
So, at supper, we discussed our generation: and the pros-
pects of war. Hitler has his million men now under arms.
Is it only summer manoeuvres or — ? Harold broadcasting
in his man of the world manner hints it may be war.
That is tite complete ruin not only of civilisation in
Europe, but of our last lap. Quentin conscripted etc. One
ceases to think about it — that’s all. Goes on discussing
the new room, new chair, new books. What else can a
gnat on a blade of grass do? And I would like to write P.H . :
and other things.

Sunday^ August 28th

The character of this summer is extreme drought.
Brooks dry. Not a mushroom yet. Sunday is the devil’s
own day at M.H.: dogs, children, bells . . . there they go
for evensong. I can’t settle an>^vhere. Beaten after three
hard fights at bowls. Bowls is our mania. Reading rather
scamped. I’m strung into a ball with Roger: got him, very

NINETEEN THIRTY-EIGHT 301

stiffly, to the verge of America, I shall take a dive into
fiction: then compose the chapter that leads to the change.
But is it readable — and Lord to think of the further com-
pressing and leavening. Ding dong bell . . . ding dong —
why did we settle in a village? And how deliberately we
arc digging ourselves in! And at any moment the guns may
go off and explode us. L. is very black. Hitler has his
hounds only very lightly held. A single step— in Czecho-
slovakia — like the Austrian Archduke in 1914 — and again
it’s 1914. Ding dong ding dong. People all strolling up
and down the fields. A grey close evening.

Thursday^ September ist

A very fine clear September day. Sybil threatens to
dine, but may put us off— should a Cabinet Minister
crop up. Politics marking time. A violent attack on Three
Guineas in Scrutiny by Q. Leavis. I don’t Uiink it gave
me an entire single thrill of horror. And I didn’t read it
through. A symbol though of what wiggings are to come.
But I read enough to see that it was ^1 personal — about
Quccnie’s own grievances and retorts to my snubs. Why
I don’t care more for praise or wigging I don’t know. Yet
it’s true. A slight distaste for my biography of Roger this
morning: too detailed and flat. But I must take it up
tomorrow, and lay aside P.H. I fear. Quentin over to
finish his table. Wc have settled to keep the roof Cornish
cream colour. I found a new walk down Telscombe
Valley to the river yesterday.

Oh Quecnie was at once cancelled by a letter from
Jane VValkcr — a thousand thanks . . . Three Guineas ought
to be in the hands of every English speaking man and
woman etc.

Monday, September ^th

It’s odd to be sitting here, looking up litdc facts about
Roger and the M.M. in New York, with a sparrow tapping
on my roof this fine September morning when it may be
3rd August 1914 . . . What would war mean? Darkness,

302 A WRITER’S DIARY

Strain: I suppose conceivably death. And all the horror
of friends: and Quentin: ... All that lies over the water
in the brain of that ridiculous little man. Why ridiculous?
Because none of it fits: encloses no reality. Death and
war and darkness representing nothing that any human
being from the pork butcher to the Prime Minister cares
one straw about. Not liberty, not life. Merely a house-
maid’s dream, and we woke from that dream and had the
Cenotaph to remind us of the fruits. \Vcll, I can’t spread
my mind wide enough to take it in, intelligibly. If it were
real, one could make something of it. But as it is it merely
grumbles, in an inarticulate way, behind reality. We may
hear his mad voice vociferating toniglit. Nuremberg rally
begun: but it goes on for another week. And what will
be happening this time lo days? Suppose we skim across,
still at any moment any accident may suddenly bring out
the uproar. But this time cvcr>'onc’s agog. That the dif-
ference. And as we’re all equally in the dark we can’t
cluster and group: we arc beginning to feel the licrd
impulse: everyone asks everyone Any news? What d’you
think? The only answer is Wait and see.

Old Mr. Thompsett meanwhile after driving horses to
the brooks and about the fields for 74 years has died in
the hospital. And L. is to read his will on Wednesday.

Saturdayy September lotk

I don’t feel that the crisis is real — not so real as Roger
in 1910 at Gordon Square, about which I’ve just been
writing; and now switch off with some difficulty to use
the last 20 minutes that are over before lunch. Of course
we may be at war this time next week. The papers each in
turn warn Hidcr in the same set, grim but composed
words, dictated by the Government presumably, that if he
forces us we shall fight. They arc all equally calm and good
tempered. Nothing is to be said to provoke. Every allow-
ance is to be made. In fact we are simply marking time as
calmly as possible until Monday or Tuesday, when the
oracle will speak. And we mean him to know what we
think. The only doubt is whether what we say reaches his

NINETEEN THIRTY-EIGHT

303

own much cumbered long ears. (I’m thinking of Roger not
of Hitler — how I bless Roger and wish 1 could tell him so,
for giving me himself to tliink of — what a help he remains
in tliis welter of unreality.) All these grim men appear
to me like grown ups staring incredulously at a child’s
sand castle which for some inexplicable reason has be-
come a real vast castle, needing gunpowder and dynamite
to destroy it. Nobody in their senses can believe in it.
Yet nobody must tell the truth. So one forgets. Meanwhile
the aeroplanes are on the prowl, crossing the downs.
Every preparation is made. Sirens will hoot in a particular
way when there’s the first hint of a raid. L. and I no longer
talk about it. Much better to play bowls and pick dahlias.
They’re blazing in the sitting room, orange against the
black last night. Our balcony is now up.

Tuesday, September 20th

Since I’m too stale to work — rather headachy — I may
as well write a sketch roughly of the next chapter.^ (I’ve
been rather absorbed in P.H.y hence headache. Note:
fiction is far more a strain than biography — that’s the
excitement.)

Suppose I make a break after H.’s • deatli (madness).
A separate paragraph quoting what R. liimsclf said.
Then a breaL Then begin definitely with the first meet-
ing. That is the first impression: a man of the world, not
professor or Bohemian. Then give facts in his letters to
his mother. Then back to the second meeting. Pictures;
talk about art: I look out of window. His persuasiveness
— a certain density — wished to persuade you to like what
he liked. Eagerness, absorption, stir — a lund of vibration
like a hawkmoth round him. Or shall I make a scene here
— at Ott.’s? ’ Then Cple.* Driving out: getting things in:
his deftness in combining. Then quote the letters to R.

The first 1910 show.

The ridicule. Quote W. Blunt.

Effect on R. Another close-up.

* Roger Fry. • Helen Fry. • Lady Ottolinc Morrell.

^ Constantinople.

A WRITER'S DIARY

304

i'hc letter to MacColl. His own personal liberation.

Excitement. Found his method (but this wasn’t lasting.
His letters to V. show that he was swayed too much by
her.)

Love. How to say that he never was in love?

Give the pre-war atmosphere. Ott. Duncan. France.

Letter to Bridges about beauty and sensuality. His
exactingness. Logic.

Thursday, September 22nd

By mistake I wrote some pages of Roger here; a proof,
if proof is needed, as I’m in the habit of saying, that my
books are in a muddle. Yes, at this moment, there arc
packets of letters to V. B. 1910-1916— packets of testi-
monials for the Oxford Slade— endless folders, each con-
taining dilTcrcnt letters, press cuttings and extracts from
books. In between come my own, now numerous, semi-
official Three Guineas letters (now sold 7,017 . . .) No
sober silent weeks of work alone all day as we’d
planned, when the Bells went. I suppose one enjoys it.
Yet I was just getting into the old, very old, rhythm of
regular reading, first this book then that: Roger all the
morning; walk from 2 to 4; bowls 5 to 6.30; then Madame
de Sdvignd; get dinner 7.30; read Roger; listen to music;
bind Eddie’s Candide; read Siegfried Sassoon; and so bed
at 11.30 or so. A very good rhythm; but I can only
manage it for a few days it seems. Next week all broken.

Thursday, October 6 th

Another 10 minutes. I’m taking a frisk at P.H. at
which I can only write for one hour. Like the Waves,
I enjoy it intensely: head screwed up over Roger. A
violent storm two days ago. No walking. Apples down,
Electric light cut off. We used the four 6d. candlesticks
bought at Woolworths. Dinner cooked, and smoked, on
dining room fire. Men now staining boards. The room
will be done actually this week. Politics now a mere “I
told you so . . . You did. I didn’t.” I shall cease to read

305

NINETEEN THIRTY-EIGHT

the papers. Sink at last into contemplation. Peace for our
lifetime: why not try to believe it? Can’t make a push and
go to S. Remy. Want to: don’t want to. Long for change:
love reading S^vigne even by candlelight. Long for
London and lights; long for vintage; long for complete
solitude. All this discussed \vith L. walking to Piddinghoe
yesterday.

Friday^ October 14th

Two things I mean to do when the long dark evenings
come: to write, on the spur of the moment, as now, lots
of little poems to go into P.H.: as they may come in
handy: to collect, even bind together, my innumerable
T.L.S. notes: to consider them as material for some kind
of critical book: quotations? comments? ranging all
through English literature as I’ve read it and noted it
during the past 20 years,

Tuesday, November zst

Max * like a Cheshire cat. Orbicular, Jowled. Blue
eyed. Eyes grow vague. Something like Bruce Richmond
— all curves. What he said was, I’ve never been in a
group. No, not even as a young man. It was a serious
fault. When you’re a young man you ought to think
There’s only one right way. And I thought This is very
profound, but you mayn’t realise it. “It takes all sorts
to make a world.” I was outside all the groups. Now dear
Roger Fry who liked me, was a born leader. No one so
“illuminated”. He looked it. Never saw anyone look it
so much. I heard him lecture, on the Aesthetics of Art.
I was disappointed. He kept on turning the page — turn-
ing the page . . . Hampstead hasn’t yet been spoilt. I
stayed at Jack Straw’s Castle some years ago. My wife
had been having influenza. And the barmaid, looking
over her shoulder, said — my wife had had influenza Uvice
— “Quite a greedy one aren’t you?” Now that’s immortal.
There’s all the race of barmaids in that. I suppose I’ve

* Max Bcerbohm,

3o6 a WRITER’S DIARY

been ten times into public liouscs. George Moore never
used his eyes. He never knew what men and women
think. He got it all out of books. Ah I was afraid you
would remind me of Avt atque Vale. Yes; that’s beautiful.
Yes, it’s true he used his eyes then. Othenvise it’s like a
lovely lake, with no fish in it. The Brook Kerith . . . Coulson
Kernahan? (I told how G. K. stopped me in Hastings.
Are you Edith Sitwell? No, Mrs. W. And you? Coulson
Kernahan.) At this Max gobbled. Instantly said he had
known him in Yellow Book days. He wrote God and the
Ant. Sold 12 million copies. And a book of reminiscences.
How I visited Lord Roberts. . . The great man rose from
his chair. His eyes — were they hazel? were they blue?
were they brown — no they were just soldier’s eyes. And
he wrote, Celebrities I have not met, Max Beerbohm.

About his own writing: dear Lylton Strachey said to
me: first I write one sentence: then I write another.
That’s how I write. And so I go on. But I have a feeling
writing ought to be like running through a field. That’s
your way. Now how do you go down to your room, after
breakfast — what do you feel? I used to look at the clock
and say oh dear me, it’s time I began my article . . .
No, I’ll read tlic paper first. I never wanted to write.
But I used to come home from a dinner party and take
my brush and draw caricature after caricature. They
seemed to bubble up from here ... he pressed his
stomach. That was a kind of inspiration, I suppose.
What you said in your beautiful essay about me and
Charles Lamb was quite true. He was crazy: he had the
gift: genius. I’m too like Jack Homer. I pull out my
plum. It’s too rounded, too perfect ... I have a public
of about 1500. Oh I’m famous, largely tlianks to you, and
people of importance at the top like you. I often read
over my own work. And I have a habit of reading it
through the eyes of people I respect. I often read it as
Virginia Woolf would read it — picking out the kind of
things you would like. You never do that? Oh you should
try it.

Isherwood and I met on the doorstep. He is a slip of a
wild boy: with quicksilver eyes: nipped: jockeylike. That

NINETEEN THIRTY-EIGHT

307

young man, said W. Maugham “holds the future of the
English novel in his hands.” Very enthusiastic. In spite
of Max’s brilliance, and idiosyncrasy, which he com-
pletely realises, and docs not overstep, this was a surface
evening; as I proved, because I found I could not smoke
the cigar which I had brought. That was on the deeper
level. All kept to the same surface level by Sybil’s hostess-
craft. Stories, compliments. The house: its shell like whiles
and silvers and greens: its panelling: its old furniture.

Wednesday^ J^'‘ovember i 6 th

There are very few mountain summit moments. I mean
looking out at peace from a height. I made this reflection
going upstairs. That is symbolical. I’m “going upstairs”
now, when I write Biography. Shall I have a moment on
top? Or when I’ve done Roger? Or tonight, in bed,
between 2 and 3? They come spasmodically. Often when
I was so miserable about The Tears.

Viola Tree died last night, of pleurisy: two years
younger than I am.

I remember the quality of her skin: like an apricot;
a few amber coloured hairs. Eyes blistered with paint
underneath. A huge Goddess woman, who was also an
old drudge; a big boned striding figure; much got up, of
late. Last time I saw her at the Gargoyle Cocktail;
when she was in her abundant expansive mood. I never
reached any other; yet always liked her. Met her perhaps
once a year, about her books. She dined here the night
her Castles in Spain came out. And I went to tea in Woburn
Square, and the butter was wrapped in a newspaper.
And there was an Italian double bed in the drawing room.
She was instinctive; and had the charm of good actress
manners; and their Bohemianism and sentimentality. But
I think was a sterling spontaneous mother and daughter;
not ambitious; a great hand at life; I suppose harassed
for money; and extravagant; and very bold; and courage-
ous — a maker of picturesque surroundings. So strong and
large that she should have lived to be 80; yet no doubt
undermined that castle, with late hours: I don’t know.

3o8 a WRITER’S DIARY

She could transmit something into words. Her daughter
Virginia to be married this week. And think of Viola
lying dead. How out of place — unnecessary.

Tuesday^ November 22nd

I meant to write Reflections on my position as a writer.

I don’t want to read Dante; have ten minutes over from
rehashing “Lappin and Lapinova,” a story written I
think at Ashcham 20 years ago or more; when I was
writing Night and Day perhaps.

That’s a long stretch. And apparently I’ve been exalted
to a very high position, say about 10 years ago: then was
decapitated by W. Lewis, and Miss Stein; am now I think
— let me sec— out of date, of course; not a patch, with the
young, on Morgan: * Yet wrote The Waves\ yet am un-
likely to write anything good again; am a secondrate and
likely, I think, to be discarded altogether. I tliink that’s
my public reputation at the moment. It is based largely
on C. Connolly’s cocktail criticism: a sheaf of feathers
in the wind. How much do I mind? Less than I expected.
But then of course; it’s all less than I realised. I mean, I
never thought I was so famous; so don’t feel the decapita-
tion. Yet it’s true that after The Waves, or Flush, Scrutiny
1 think found me out. W. L. attacked me, I was aware
of an active opposition. Yes I used to be praised by the
young and attacked by the elderly. Three Guineas has
queered the pitch. For the G. M. Youngs and the Scru-
tineers both attack that. And my own friends have sent
me to Coventry over it. So my position is ambiguous.
Undoubtedly Morgan’s reputation is much higher than
my own. So is Tom’s.* Well? In a way it is a relief. I’m
fundamentally, I think, an outsider. I do my best work
and feel most braced with my back to the wall. It’s an
odd feeling though, writing against the current: difficult
entirely to disregard the current. Yet of course I shall.
And it remains to be seen if there’s anything in P.H. In
any case 1 have my critical brain to fall back on.

* E. M. Fontcr. • T. S. EUot.

NINETEEN THIRTY-EIGHT

309

Monday^ December igth

I will spend the last morning — for tomorrow will be
an odious scramble — in summing up the year. True, there
are 10 days or so to run: but the liberty of this book allows
these — I was going to say liberties, but my meticulous
conscience bids me look for another word. That raises
some questions: but I leave them; questions about my
concern with the art of writing. On the whole the art be-
comes absorbing — more? no, I think it’s been absorbing
ever since I was a little creature, scribbling a story in
the manner of Hawthorne on the green plush sofa in the
drawing room at St. Ives while the grown ups dined. The
last dinner of tlie year was to Tom.

This year I have worked at Three Guineas: and begun,
about April ist, Roger: whom I have brought to the year
1919. I have also written Walpole; Lappin Lapinova;
and The Art of Biography. The reception of Three Guineas
has been interesting, unexpected — only I’m not sure
what I expected. 8,000 sold. Not one of my friends has
mentioned it. My wide circle has widened — but I’m alto-
gether in the dark as to the true merits of the book. Is
it . . .? No, I won’t even formulate qualities; for, it’s true,
no one has yet summed it up. Much less unanimity than
about Room of One's Oum. A suspended judgment upon
that work then seems fittest. I’ve tvritten too 120 pages of
Pointz Hall. I think of making it a 220 page book. A med-
ley. I rush to it for relief after a long pressure of Fry facts.
But I think I see a whole somewhere — it was simply
seized, one day, about April, as a dangling thread: no
notion what page came next. And then they came. To be
written for pleasure.

1939

Friday^ January 5th

So I take a new nib, after bringing Roger to the verge
ofjosettc with the old one, and spend my last five minutes,
this very fine January morning, in writing the first page
of the New Year. Last five minutes before lunch — how
inaugurate this important volume in that time, with this
brain? A brain still running in the rut of the last sentence.
Which last sentence will be rewritten a dozen times, too.
So the dominant theme is work: Roger: the others the
usual Rodmell themes. That is. I’ve let the frost go too
far away. We came down 14 or 15 days ago and found
all pipes frozen. There was snow for five days — bitter
cold: wind. We staggered for one hour through the bliz-
zard. Chains were on our wheels. We ground over to
Charleston and Tilton on Christmas day. Then, two days
later, woke to find green grass cvery^vhere. The long
spikes of ice that hung down the kitchen window had
drops on their noses. They melted. The pipes thawed.
Now it’s a June morning with an cast wind. And time’s
up. But the book’s begun anyhow. And perhaps I shall
get a clearer head and say 10 minutes tomorrow.

Monday^ January 8th

Now that I have brought my brain to the state of an
old washerwoman’s flannel over Roger — Lord the josette
chapter — and it’s all too detailed, too tied down — I must
expand, first on this irresponsible page and then, for four
days I swear, before wc go back on Sunday, in fiction.
Though I’ve ground out most wish to write, even fiction.
Rodmell is a grind on the brain; in winter especially. I
write three solid hours: walk two: then we read, with
intervab for cooking dinner, music, news, till 11.30. I’ve
thus read ever so many packets of R.’s letters; and some
S^vign6; Chaucer — and some nonsense books.

310

NINETEEN THIRTY-NINE 31J

Thursday^ January i8th

It is undoubtedly a great freshener to have my story
taken by Harpers. I heard this morning. A beautiful
story, enchanted to have it. 600 dollars made then. But
the encouragement, I must note, by way of suppling
my theories that one should do without encouragement,
is a warmer, a reviver. I can’t deny it. I was, perhaps
partly on that account, in full flood this morning with
P.H. I think I have got at a more direct method of sum-
marising relations; and then the poems (in metre) ran off
the prose lyric vein, which, as I agree with Roger, I over-
do. That was, by the way, the best criticism I’ve had for a
long time: that I poetise my inanimate scenes, stress my
personality; don’t let the meaning emerge from the
matidre.

Tuesday^ February 28th

It is unfortunate for truth’s sake that I never write here
except when jangled with talk. I only record the dumps
and the dismals and them very barely. A holiday from
Roger. And one day’s happiness with P.H. Then too many
parcels; books coming out; and a head numb at the back.
As usud, when I’m prone, all the gnats settle. The usual
ones. I needn’t specify. I have to “speak” to polytechnics;
and engagements multiply. Innumerable reflxgecs to add
to the tangle. There — I’ve recorded them when I said I
wouldn’t.

Saturday^ March nth

Yesterday, that is Friday loth, I set the last word to
the first sketch of Roger. And now I have to begin — well
not even to begin, but to revise and revise. A terrible
grind to come: and innumerable doubts, of myself as
biographer: of the possibility of doing it at all: all the
same I’ve carried through to the end; and may allow
myself one moment’s mild gratification There are the
facts more or less extracted. And I’ve no time to go into

312 A WRITER’S DIARY

all the innumerable horrors. There may be a flick of life
in it — or is it all dust and ashes?

Tuesday^ April nth

I am reading Dickens; by way of a refresher. How he
lives: not writes: both a virtue and a fault. Like seeing
something emerge; without containing mind. Yet the
accuracy and even sometimes the penetration — into Miss
Squeers and Miss Price and the farmer for example —
remarkable. I can’t dip my critical mind, even if I try to.
Then I’m reading Sevigne, professionally, for that quick
amalgamation of books that I intend. In future, I’m to
write quick, intense, short books, and never be tied down.
This is the way to keep off the settling down and refriger-
ation of old age. And to flout all preconceived theories.
For more and more 1 doubt if enough is known to sketch
even probable lines, all too emphatic and conventional.
Maurice, the last of tlic LI. Davies brothers, is dead; and
Margaret lives — lives too carefully of life, I used to feel
Why drag on, always measuring and testing one’s little
bit of strength and setting it easy tasks so as to accumulate
years? Also I’m reading Rochefoucauld. That’s tlic real
point of my little brown book — that it makes me read —
with a pen — following the scent; and read the good books:
not the slither of MSS and the stridency of the young
chawking — the word expresses callow bills agape and
chattering — for sympathy. Chaucer I take at need. So if
I had any lime — but perhaps next week will be more
solitudinous — I should, if it weren’t for the war — glide
my way up and up into tliat exciting layer so rarely lived
in: where my mind works so quick it seems asleep; like the
aeroplane propellers. But I must retype the last Clifton
passage; and so be quit for tomorrow and clear the decks
for Cambridge. Rather good, I expect it is: condensed
and moulded.

Thursday^ April i^th

Two days of influenza after that, mild but sucking

NINETEEN THIRTY-NINE 313

one’s head as usual, so I’m out here this morning only
to drone my way through a few Roger letters. I finished
my first 40 pages — childhood etc. — well under the week;
but then they were largely autobiography; Now politics
impend. Chamberlain’s statement in the House today.
War I suppose not tomorrow, but nearer.

I read about 100 pages of Dickens yesterday, and see
something vague about the drama and fiction; how the
emphasis, the caricature of these innumerable scenes, for-
ever forming character, descend from the stage. Literature
— that is the shading, suggesting, as of Henry James,
hardly used. All bold and coloured. Rather monotonous;
yet so abundant, so creative: yes, but not highly creative:
not suggestive. Everything laid on the table. Nothing to
engender in solitude. That’s why it’s so rapid and attrac-
tive. Nothing to make one put the book down and think.
But these arc influenza musings; and I’m so muddled I
shall take Sir Edward into the house and extract him over
the fire.

Saturday^ April 15th

I’ve done rather well at Roger considering: I don’t think
I shall take two weeks over each chapter. And it’s rather
amusing — dealing drastically with this year’s drudgery.
I think I sec how it shapes: and my compiling method
was a good one. Perhaps it’s too like a novel. I don’t
bother. No letters; no news; and my head too staked for
reading. L. galloping through his book. I should like a
holiday — a few days in France — or a run through the
Cotswolds. But considering how many things I have that
I like — What’s odd — (I’m always beginning like tliis) is
the severance that war seems to bring: everything be-
comes meaningless: can’t plan: then there comes too the
community feeling: all England thinking the same thing
— this horror of war — at the same moment. Never felt it
so strong before. Then the lull and one lapses again into
private separation.

But I must order macaroni from London.

A WRITER’S DIARY

3'4

Wednesday, April 26th

I’ve done a quarter — 100 pages of Roger which I shall
have by tomorrow. As there are 400 pages, and one
hundred takes three weeks (oh but I was interrupted) —
it will take nine weeks to finish. Yes, I ought to have
finished it by the end of July. Only we may go away.
Say August. And have it all typed in September . . .
Well — then it will be out this time next year. And I shall
be free in August — What a grind it is; and I suppose of
little interest except to six or seven people. And I shall be
abused.

Thursday^ June 2gth

The grind of doing Roger and PIP makes my head
spin and I let it reel itself off for 10 minutes here. I wonder
why; and if I shall ever read this again. Perhaps if I go
on with my memoirs, also a relief from i?., I shall make
use of it. A dismal day yesterday: shoe hunting in Fort-
nums. A sale, but only of the unsaleable. And tlie atmos-
phere, British upper classes; all tight and red nailed;
myself a figure offun — whips my skin: I fidget: but recoup
myself walking in the rain through the Parks, Come home
and try to concentrate on Pascal. I can’t. Still it’s the only
way of tuning up, and I get a calm, if not understanding.
These pin points of theology need a grasp beyond me.
Still I sec Lytton’s point — my dear old serpent. What a
dream life is to be sure — that he should be dead, and I
reading him: and trying to make out that we indented
ourselves in the world; whereas I sometimes feel it’s been
an illusion — gone so fast; lived so quickly; and nothing
to show for it, save these little books. But that makes me
dig my feet in and squeeze the moment. So after dinner
I walked to the Clinic witli L.; waited outside with Sally
tugging; watched the evening sight: oh and the purple
grey clouds above Regents Park with the violet and yellow
sky signs made me leap with pleasure.

3>5

NINETEEN THIRTY-NINE
Monday^ August yth

I am now going to make the rash and bold experiment
of breaking off, from condensing Vision and Design; to write
here for lo minutes instead of revising, as I ought, my
morning’s grind.

Oh yes, I thought of several tilings to write about.
Not exactly diary. Reflections. That’s the fashionable
dodge. Peter Lucas and Gidc both at it. Neither can settle
to creative art. (I think, sans Roger, I could.) It’s the
comment — the daily interjection — that comes handy in
times like these. I too feel it. But what was I thinking? I
have been thinking about Censors. How visionary figures
admonish us. That’s clear in an MS I’m reading.

If I say this, So-and-so will think me sentimental. If
that . , . will think me bourgeois. AH books now seem to
me surrounded by a circle of invisible censors. Hence their
sclfconsciousncss, their restlessness. It would be wortli
while trying to discover what they are at the moment.
Did Wordsworth have them? I doubt it. I read “Ruth”
before breakfast. Its stillness, its unconsciousness, its lack
of distraction, its concentration and the resulting “beauty”
struck me. Pis if the mind must be allowed to settle un-
disturbed over the object in order to secrete the pearl.

That’s an idea for an article.

The figurative expression is that all the surroundings
of the mind hav'c come much closer. A child crying in tlie
field brings poverty: my comfort; to mind. Ought I to go
to the village sports? “Ought” thus breaks into my
contemplation.

Oh and I thought, as I was dressing, how interesting
it would be to describe the approach of age, and the
gra^ujd coming of death. As people describe love. To
note every symptom of failure: but why failure? To treat
age as an experience that is different from the others; and
to detect every one of the gradual stages towards death
which is a tremendous experience, and not as unconscious, ^
at least in its approaches, as birth is.

I must now return to my grind, I think rather refreshed.

3i6 a WRITER’S DIARY

Wednesday y August gth

My grind has left me dazed and depressed. How on
earth to bring off this chapter? God knows.

Thursdayy August 24th

Perhaps it is more interesting to describe “the crisis”
than R.’s love affairs. Yes we are in the very thick of it.
Arc wc at war? At one I’m going to listen in. It’s very
different, emotionally, from last September. In London
yesterday there was indifference almost. No crow'd in the
train — wc went by train. No stir in the streets. One of the
removers called up. It’s fate, as the foreman said. What
can you do against fate? Complete chaos at 37.* Ann *
met in graveyard. No war, of course now, she said. John
said* “Well I don’t know what to think.” But as a dress
rehearsal it’s complete. Museums shut. Searchlight on
Rodmell Hill. Chamberlain says danger imminent. The
Russian pact a disagreeable and unforeseen surprise.
Rather like a herd of sheep wc arc. No enthusiasm.
Patient bewilderment. I suspect some desire “to get on
with it.” Order double supplies and some coal. Aunt
Violet in refuge at Charleston. Unreal. Whiffs of despair.
Difficult to work. Offer of from Chambers for a

story. Haze over the marsh. Aeroplanes. One touch on the
switch and wc shall be at war. Danzig not yet taken.
Clerks cheerful. I add one little straw to another, waiting
to go in, palsied with writing. There’s no cause now to
fight for, said Ann. Communists baffled. Railway strike off.
Lord Halifax broadcasts in his country gentleman voice.
Louie says will clothes be dear? Underneath of course
wells of pessimism. Young men tom to bits: mothers like
Nessa two years ago. But again, some swerve to the right
may come at any moment. The common feeling covers the
private, then recedes. Discomfort and distraction. And all
mixed with the mess at 37.

^ 37 Mccklcnburgh Square into which wc were moving.

• Aim Stephen, V. W.’s niece. ■ John Lwmann.

NINETEEN THIRTY-NINE

3>7

Wednesday^ September 6th

Our first air raid warning at 8.30 tliis morning. A warb-
ling that gradually insinuates itself as I lay in bed- So
dressed and walked on the terrace with L. Sky clear. All
cottages shut. Breakfast. All clear. During the interval a
raid on Southwark. No news. The Hcpwortlis came on
Monday. Rather like a sea voyage. Forced conversation.
Boredom. All meaning has run out of everything. Scarcely
worth reading papers. The B.B.C. gives any news the day
before. Emptiness. Inefficiency. I may as well record these
things. My plan is to force my brain to work on Roger.
But Lord this is the worst of all my life’s e.xpcriences. It
means feeling only bodily feelings: one gets cold and
torpid. Endless interruptions. We have done the curtains.
We have carried coals etc. into the cottage for the 8 Batter-
sea women and children. The expectant mothers arc all
quarrelling. Some went back yesterday. We took the car
to be hooded, met Nessa, were driven to tea at Charleston.
Yes, it’s an empty meaningless world now. Am I a coward?
Physically I expect I am. Going to London tomorrow I
expect frightens me. At a pinch enough adrenalin is
secreted to keep one calm. But my brain stops. 1 took up
my watch this morning and then put it down. Lost. That
kind of thing annoys me. No doubt one can conquer this.
But my mind seems to curl up and become undecided. To
cure this one had better read a solid book like Tawncy. An
exercise of the muscles. The Hepworths are travelling
books in Brighton. Shall I walk? Yes. It’s the gnats and
flics that settle on non-combatants. This war has begun in
cold blood. One merely feels that the killing machine has
to be set in action.

So far, the Athenia has been sunk. It seems entirely
meaningless — a perfunctory slaughter. Like taking a jar
in one hand, a hammer in the other. Why must this be
smashed? Nobody knows. This feeling is different from
any before. And all the blood has been let out of common
life. No movies or theatres allowed. No letters, except
strays from America. Reviewing rejected by Atlantic. No
friends write or ring up. Yes, a long sea voyage, with

3i8 a WRITER’S DIARY

strangers making conversation, and lots of small bothers
and arrangements, seems the closest I can get. Of course
all creative power is cut off. Perfect summer weather.

It’s like an invalid who can look up and take a cup of
tea. Suddenly one can take to the pen with relief. Result
of a walk in the heat, clearing the fug and setting the blood
working. This book will serve to accumulate notes, the
first of such quickenings. And for the hundredth time I
repeat — any idea is more real than any amount of war
misery. And what one’s made for. And the only contribu-
tion one can make— this little pittcr patter of ideas is my
wliifTofshot in the cause of freedom. So I tell myself. Thus
bolstering up a figment — a phantom: recovering that
sense of something pre.ssing from outside which consolidates
the mist, the non-existent.

I conceived the idea, walking in the sunbaked marsh
where I saw one clouded yellow, of making an article out
of these 15 odd diaries. This will be an easy slope of work:
not the steep grind of Roger. But shall I ever have a few
hours to read in? I must. Tonight the Raid has diminished
from a raid on Southwark; on Portsmouth; on Scar-
borough, to an attempt on tlie East Coast without damage.
Tomorrow we go up.

Monday^ September nth

I have just read 3 or 4 characters of Theophrastus,
stumbling from Greek to English, and may as well make a
note of it. Trying to anchor my mind on Greek. Rather
successful. As usual, how Greek sticks, darts, cels in and
out! No Latin would have noted that a boor remembers
his loans in the middle of the night. The Greek has his eye
on the object. But it’s a long distance one has to roll away
to get at Theophrastus and Plato. But worth the effort.

Thursday^ September 28th

No, Tm not sure of the date. And Vita is lunching here.
I’m going to stop R. at 12, then read something real. I’m
not going to let my brain addle. Little sharp notes. For

NINETEEN THIRTY-NINE 319

somehow my brain is not very vigorous at the end of a
book though I could dash off fiction or an article merrily
enough. Why not relieve it then? Wasn’t it my con-
scientious grind at The Years that killed it. So I whizz off
to Stevenson — Jekyll and Hyde — not much to my liking.
Very fine clear September weather. \Vindy but lovely
light. And I can’t form letters.

Friday, October 6th

Well I have succeeded in despite of distractions to
belong to other nations in copying out again the whole of
Roger. Needless to say, it’s still to be revised, compacted,
vitalised. And can I ever do it? The distractions are so
incessant. I compose articles on Lewis Carroll and read a
great variety of books — Flaubert’s life, R.’s lectures, out
at last, a life of Erasmus and Jacques Blanche. \Ve arc
asked to lunch with Mrs. Webb, who so often talks of us.
And my hand seems as tremulous as an aspen. I have
composed myself by tidying my room. Can’t quite see my
way now as to the next step in composition. Tom this
weekend. I meant to record a Third Class Railway Car-
riage conversation. The talk of business men. Their male
detached lives. All politics. Deliberate, well set up, con-
temptuous and indifferent of the feminine. For example:
one man hands the Evening Standard, points to a woman’s
photograph. “Women? Let her go home and bowl her
hoop,” said the man in blue serge with one smashed eye.
“She’s a drag on him,” another fragment. The son is
going to lectures every night. Odd to look into tlus cool
man’s world: so weather tight: insurance clerks all on top
of their work; scaled up; self-sufficient; admirable;
caustic; laconic; objective; and completely provided for.
Yet thin, sensitive: yet schoolboys; yet men who earn tlicir
livings. In the early train they said, “Can’t think how
people have time to go to war. It must be that the blokes
haven’t got jobs.” “I prefer a fool’s paradise to a real hell.”
“War’s lunacy. Mr. Hitler and his set arc gangsters. Like
A1 Capone.” Not a chink through which one can see art,
or books. They play crosswords when insurance shop fails.

A WRITER’S DIARY

320

Saturday^ October yth

It’s odd how those first days of complete nullity when
war broke out have given place to such a pressure of ideas
and work that I feel the old throb and spin in my head
more of a drain than ever. The result partly of taking up
journalism. A good move, I daresay; for it compacts; and
forces me to organise. I’m masterfully pulling together
those diffuse chapters of R. because I know I must stop and
do an article. Ideas for articles obsess me. Why not try
the one for The Times? No sooner said than I’m ravaged
by ideas. Have to hold the Roger fort — for I will have the
whole book typed and in Nessa’s hands by Christmas — by
force.

Thursday i November gth

How glad I am to escape to my free page. But I think I’m
nearing the end of my trouble with Roger. Doing once more,
the last pages: and I think I like it better than before. I
think the idea of breaking up the last chapter into sections
was a good one. If only I can bring that end off. The worst
of journalism is that it distracts, like a shower on the top
of the sea.

Revieiving ' came out last week; and was not let slip into
obscurity as I expected. Lit. Sup. had a tart and peevish
leader; the old tone of voice I know so well — rasped and
injured. Then Y. Y. polite but aghast in the M.S. And then
my answer — why an answer should always make me dance
like a monkey at the Zoo, gibbering it over as 1 walk, and
tlien re-writing, 1 don’t know. It wasted a day. I suppose
it’s all pure waste: yet if one’s an outsider, be an outsider.
Only don’t for God’s sake attitudinise and take up the
striking, the becoming attitude.

Thursday y November 30th

Very jaded and tired and depressed and cross, and so
take the liberty of expressing my feelings here. R. a failure

* A pamphlet by Virginia Woolf.

NINETEEN THIRTY-NINE 321

— and what a grind ... no more of that. I’m brain fagged
and must resist the desire to tear up and cross out — must
fill my mind with air and light; and walk and blanket it
in fog. Rubber boots help. I can flounder over the marsh.
No, I will write a little memoir.

Saturday y December 2 nd

Tiredness and dejection give way if one day off is taken
instantly. I went in and did my cushion. In the evening
my pain in my head calmed. Ideas came back. This is a
hint to be remembered. Always turn the pillow. Tlicn I
become a swarm of ideas. Only I must hive them til! R. is
done. It was annoying to get on to the surface and be so
stung with my pamphlet. No more controversy for a year,
I vow. Ideas: about writers* duty. No, I’ll shelve that.
Began reading Freud last night; to enlarge the circumfer-
ence: to give my brain a wider scope: to make it objective;
to get outside. Thus defeat the shrinkage of age. Always
take on new things. Break the rhythm etc. Use this page,
now and then, for notes. Only they escape after the morn-
ing’s grind.

Saturdayy December i6th

The litter in this room is so appalling that it takes me
five minutes to find my pen. R. all unsewn in bits. And I
must take 50 pages, should be too, up on Monday. Can’t
get the marriage chapter right. Proportion all wrong.
Alteration, quotation, makes it worse. But it’s true I don’t
fuss quite so much as over a novel. I learned a lesson in
rc-writing The Tears which I shall never forget. Always I
say to myself Remember the horror of that. Yesterday I
was, I suppose, cheerful. Two letters from admirers of
Three Guineas: both genuine: one a soldier in the trenches;
the other a distracted middle class woman.

Monday, December i8th

Once more, as so often, I hunt for my dear old red-
covered book, with what an instinct I’m not quite sure.

322 A WRITER'S DIARY

For what the point of making these notes is I don’t know;
save that it becomes a necessity to uncramp, and some of
it may interest me later. But what? For I never reach the
depths; I’m too surface blown. And always scribble before
going in — look quickly at my watch. Yes, lo minutes left

wiiat can I say. Nothing that needs thought; which is

provoking; for I often think. And think the very thought
I could write here. About being an outsider. About my
defiance of professional decency. Another allusion of a tart
kind to Mrs. \V., and her desire to kill reviewers in the
Lit. Sup. yesterday. Frank Swinnerton is the good boy and
I’m the bad little girl. And this is trivial, compared with
what? Oh the Grfl/ Spec is going to steam out of Monte
Video today into the jaws of death. And journalists and
rich people arc hiring aeroplanes from which to see the
sight. This seems to me to bring war into a new angle; and
our psychology. No time to work out. Anyhow the eyes of
the whole world (B.B.C.) are on the game; and several
people will lie dead tonight, or in agony. And we shall
have it served up for us as we sit over our logs this bitter
winter night. And the British Captain has been given a
K.C.B. and Horizon is out; and Louie h^ had her teeth
out; and we ate too much hare pie last night; and I read
Freud on Groups; and I’ve been titivating Roger', and this
is the last page; and the year draws to an end; and we’ve
asked Plomer for Christmas; and— now time’s up as usual.
I’m reading Ricketts diary— all about the war — the last
war; and the Herbert diaries and . . . yes, Dadie’s
Shakespeare, and notes overflow into my two books.

I 940

Saturday^ January 6th

An obituary: Humbert Wolfe. Once I shared a packet
of choc, creams \vith him, at Eileen Powers. An admirer
sent them. This was a fitting tribute. A theatrical looking
glib man. Told me he was often asked if I were his wife.
Volunteered that he was happily married, though his wife
lived — Geneva? I forget. Remember thinking, Why pro-
test? What’s worrying you? Oh it was the night Arnold
Bennett attacked me in the Evening Standard. Orlando?
I was going to meet him at Sybil’s next day. There was a
queer histrionic look in him, perhaps strain in him. Very
self assured, outwardly. Inwardly lacerated by tlic taunt
that he wrote too easily and deified satire; that’s my salvage
from an autobiography of him— one of many, as if he were
dissatisfied and must always draw and redraw his own pic-
ture. I suppose the origin of many of the new middle aged
autos. So the inspirer of these vague winter night memories
— he who sends for the last time a faint film across my tired
head — lies with those blackberry eyes shut in that sul-
phurous cavernous face. (If I were writing I should have
to remove either lies or eyes. Is this right? Yes, I think for
me; nor need it spoil the run: only one must always prac-
tise every style: it’s the only way to keep on the boil: I
mean the only way to avoid crust is to set a faggot of words
in a blaze. That phrase flags. Well, let it. These pages only
cost a fraction of a farthing, so that my exchequer isn’t
imperilled.) Mill I should be reading. Or Little Dorrity but
both are gone stale, like a cheese that’s been cut and left.
The first slice is always the best.

Friday f January 26th

These moments of despair — I mean glacial suspense —
a painted fly in a glass case — have given way as they so
often do to ecstasy. Is it that I have thrown off those two

3*3

324 A WRITER’S DIARY

dead pigeons — my story, my Gas at Abbotsford (printed
today) — and so ideas rush in. I began one night, abso-
lutely submerged, throttled, held in a vice with my nose
rubbed against Roger — no way out — all hard as iron — to
read Julian. And off winged my mind along those wild
uplands. A hint for the future. Always relieve pressure by
a flight. Always violently turn the pillow: hack an outlet.
Often a trifle does. A review offered of Marie Corelli by
the Listener. These are travellers notes whicli I offer myself
should 1 again be lost. I think the last chapter must be
sweated from 20,000 to 10,000. This is an attempt at the
first words:

“Transformation is tlic title that Roger Fry gave to his

last book of essays. And it seems natural
But transformation enough, looking back at the last ten
must express not years of his life, to choose it by way of
only change, but title for them too.

achievement. "They were years not of repose and

stagnation, but of perpetual experiment
and experience. His position as a critic became established.
‘At the time of his death,’ writes Howard Hannay, ‘Roger
Fry’s position in the English art world was unique, and
the only parallel to it is that of Ruskin at the height of his
reputation.’

“But that position was the result of the freedom and the
vigour with which he carried on his intellectual life; and
with which he extended and enlarged his views. Nor was
he less adventurous in the other life. And these two trans-
formations resulted in something permanent. As Sir K.
Clark says, ‘Although he was remarkably consistent in the
main outlines of his beliefs, his mind was invincibly ex-
perimental and ready for any adventure, however far it
might lead him beyond the boundaries of academic
tradition.*

“Physically, the strain w'as very great. His health had
suffered from the long years at the Omega.”

No, I cannot reel it off at all. How queer the change is
from private writing to public tvriting. And how exhaust-
ing. My little fund of gossip and comment is dried up.

NINETEEN FORTY 325

\yhat was I going to say? Oh that the lyric mood of the
winter — its intense spiritual exaltation — is over. The thaw
has set in; and rain and wind; and the marsh is soggy and
patched with white, and two very small lambs were
staggering in the cast wind. One dead ewe was being
carted off; and shirking the horror I crept back by the
hanger. Nor have I spent a virtuous evening, hacking at
these phrases. I’m enjoying Burke though, and shall tune
up on the French Revolution.

Friday^ February 2nd

Only the fire sets me dreaming — of all the things I mean
to write. The break in our lives from London to country
is a far more complete one than any change of house. Yes,
but I haven’t got the hang of it altogether. The immense
space suddenly becomes vacant: then illuminated. .\nd
London, in nips, is cramped and creased. Odd how often
I think with what is love I suppose of the City: of the walk
to the Tower: that is my England: I mean, if a bomb
destroyed one of those little alleys with the brass bound
curtains and the river smell and the old woman reading,
I should feel — well, what the patriots feel.

Friday f February gth

For some reason hope has revived. Now what served as
bait? A letter from Joe Ackerly approving my Corelli?
Not much. Tom dining with us? No. I think it was largely
reading Stephen’s autobiography: though it gave me a
pang of envy, by its youth and its vigour, and some good
novelist’s touches — 1 could pick holes though. But it’s odd
— reading that and South Riding both mint new, gives me
a fillip after all the evenings I grind at Burke and Mill. A
good thing to read one’s contemporaries, even rapid
twinkling slice of life novels like poor W. H.’s. And then,
I’ve polished off, to the last gaiter button, the three
d — -Ad chapters for London on Monday; and got my teeth
I think firm into the last Transformations: and though of
course I shall get the black shivers when I re-read, let

326 A WRITER’S DIARY

alone submit to Ncssa and Margery, I can’t help thinking
I’ve caught a good deal of that iridescent man in my oh so
laborious butterfly net. I daresay I’ve written every page
— certainly the last — lo or 15 times over. And I don’t
think I’ve killed: I think I’ve brisked. Hence an evening
glow. Yet the wind cuts like a scythe; the dining room
carpet is turning to mould; and John Buchan has fallen on
his head and is apparently, dying. Monty Shearman is also
dead; and Campbell. L.’s absurd nice old parson friend—
his bachelor Buffy friend. Now the wind rises: something
rattles, and thank God I’m not on the North Sea, nor
taking off to raid Heligoland. Now I’m going to read
Freud. Yes, Stephen gave me three hours of continuous
illusion— and if one can get that still, there’s a world—
what’s the quotation? — there’s a world outside? No. From
Coriolanus?

Sunday, February nth

By way of postponing the writing of cheques — the war,
by the way, has tied up my purse strings again, as in the
old days of 1 1 /- a week pocket money — I write here: and
note that the authentic glow of finishing a book is on me.
Docs this mean it’s good; or only that I have delivered my
mind successfully? Anyhow, after shivering yesterday,
today I made a stride, and shall I think finish this week at
37. It’s tight and conscientious anyhow. So, walking this
inildish day, up to Telscombe I invented pages and pages
of my lecture: which is to be full and fertile. The idea
struck me that the Leaning Tower school is the school of
auto-analysis after the suppression of the 19th century.
Quote Stevenson. This explains Stephen’s autobiography:
Louis MacNeice etc. Also I get the idea of cerebration:
poetry that is not unconscious, but stirred by surface
irritation, to which tlie alien matter of politics, that can’t
be fused, contributes. Hence the lack of suggestive power.
Is the best poetry tliat which is most suggestive — is it made
of the fusion of many different ideas, so that it says more
than is explicable? Well, that’s the line; and it leads to
Public Libraries : and the supersession of aristocratic culture

NINETEEN FORTY 327

by common readers: also to the end of class literature; the
beginning of character literature: new words from new
blood; and the comparison with the Elizabethans. I think
there’s something in the psycho-analysis idea: that the
Leaning Tower writer couldn’t describe society; had there-
fore to describe himself, as the product, or victim: a neces-
sary step towards freeing the next generation of repressions.
A new conception of the writer needed: and they have
demolished the romance of “genius” of the great man, by
diminishing thenaselves. They haven’t explored, like H.
James, the individual: they haven’t deepened; they’ve
cut the outline sharper. And so on. L. saw a grey heraldic
bird: I only saw my thoughts.

Sundqyy February i 8 th

This diary might be divided into London diary and
country. I think there is a division. Just back from the
London chapter. Bitter cold. This shortened my walk,
which I meant to be through crowded streets. Then the
dark — no lighted windows, depressed me. Standing in
Whitehall, I said to my horses “Home, John” and drove
back in the grey dawn light, the cheerless spectral light of
fading evening in houses — so much more cheerless than
the country evening — to Holbom, and so to the bright
cave, which I liked better, having shifted the chairs. How
silent it is there — and London silent: a great dumb ox
lying couchant.

Monday^ February igth

I may as well make a note I say to myself: thinking
sometimes who’s going to read all this scribble? I think
one day I may brew a tiny ingot out of it — in my memoirs.
Lytton is hinted as my next task by the way. And Three
Guineas a dead failure in U.S.A.; but enough.

Wednesday^ March 20th

Yes, another attack,^ in fact two other attacks: one

* Of influenza.

328 A WRITER’S DIARY

Sunday week — loi with Angelica there to put me to bed;
t’other last Friday, 102 after lunch. So to bed up here in
L.’s room, and Dr. Tooth, who keeps me in bed (where I
sit up with L. reading proofs) till tomorrow. That’s the
boring history. \Vhat they call recurring with slight
bronchitis. Yes. One Sunday (the loi Sunday) L. gave me
a very severe lecture on the first half. We walked in the
meadows. It was like being pecked by a very hard strong
beak. The more he pecked the deeper, as always happens.
At last he was almost angry that Td chosen “what seems
to me the \vrong method. It’s merely analysis, not history.
Austere repression. In fact dull to the outsider. All those
dead quotations.’’ His theme was that you can’t treat a life
like that; must be seen from the writer’s angle, unless the
liver is himself a seer, which R. wasn’t. It was a curious
example of L. at his most rational and impersonal: rather
impressive: yet so definite, so emphatic, that I felt con-
vinced: I mean of failure; save for one odd gleam, that he
was himself on the wrong tack, and persisting for some
deep reason — dissympathy with R.? lack of interest in
personality? Lord knows. I note this plaited strand in my
mind; and even wliile we walked and the beak struck
deeper, deeper, had this completely detached interest in
L.’s character. Then Nessa came; disagreed; Margery’s
letter “Very alive and interesting”; then L. read the
second half; thought it ended on the doorstep at Bernard
Street: then N.’s note “I’m crying can’t thank you” — then
N. and D. to tea up here; forbid me to alter anything;
then Margery’s final letter “It’s him . . . unbounded ad-
miration”. There I pause. Well, I think I re-write certain
passages, have even in bed sketched them, but how in time
for this spring? That I shelve till tomorrow. Great relief all
the same.

Thursday^ March 21st

Here is the Good Friday festival beginning. How one
can sense that in a garden, with flowers and birds only, I
can’t say. Now for me begins the twilight hour, the
emerging hour, of disagreeable compromise. Up to lunch.

NINETEEN FORTY 329

In the sitting room for tea. You know die dreary, messy,
uncomfortable paper strewn, picking at this and that,
frame of mind. And \vith R. hanging over me. Walk out
as soon as possible and keep on reading Hcn cy’s memoirs.
And so come to the top slowly. I’m thinking of some
articles. Sidney Smith. Madame de Stael. Virgil. Tolstoy,
or perhaps Gogol. Now I’ll get L. to find a life of Smith in
the ^wes Library. A good idea. I’ll ring up Nessa about
sending Helen that chapter, and establish an engagement.
I read Tolstoy at breakfast — Goldenweiser that I trans-
lated with Kot in 1923 and have almost forgotten. Always
the same reality — like touching an exposed electric wire.
Even so imperfectly conveyed — his rugged short cut mind
— to me the most, not sympathetic, but inspiring, rousing:
genius in the raw. Thus more disturbing, more “shocking”
more of a thunderclap, even on art, even on literature,
than any other writer. I remember that was my feeling
about H^ar and Peace, read in bed at Twickenham. ‘ Old
Savage * picked it up, “Splendid stulf!” and Jean ® tried
to admire what was a revelation to me. Its directness, its
reality. Yet he’s against photographic realism. Sally is lame
and has to go to the vet. Sun coming out. One bird pierces
like a needle. All crocuses and squills out. No leaves or
buds on trees. I’m quoted, about Russian, in Lit. Sup.
leader, oddly enough.

Friday^ March 2gth

What shall I think of that’s liberating and freshening?
I’m in the mood when I open my window at night and
look at the stars. Unfortunately it’s 12.15 on a grey dull
day, the aeroplanes are active, Botten * is to be buried at
3; and I’m brain creased after Margery, after John and
after Q. But it’s the little antlike nibblings of M. that
infect me — ants run in my brain — emendations, tributes,
feelings, dates — and all the detail that seems to the

* A nursing home at Twickenham.

* Sir George Savage, V. W.’s doctor.

’ Miss Thomas, who kept the nursing home.

* A Rodmell fanner.

330

A WRITER’S DIARY

non-writcr so easy — (“just to add this about Joan” etc) and
to me is torture. Thumbing those old pages — and copying
into the carbon. Lord, lord! And influenza damped. Well
I recur, what shall I think of? The river. Say the Thames
at London Bridge: and buying a notebook; and then
walking along the Strand and letting each face give me a
buffet; and each shop; and perhaps a Penguin. For we’re
up in London on Monday. Then I think I’ll read an
Elizabethan — like swinging from bough to bough. Then
back here I’ll saunter ... oh yes and we’ll travel our
books round the Coast — and have tea in a shop and look
at antiques; and there’ll be a lovely farmhouse — or a new
lane — and flowers; and bowls with L., and reading very
calmly for C.R.s. but no pressure; and May coming and
asparagus and butterflies. Perhaps I’ll garden a little; oh
and print; and change my bedroom furniture. Is it age, or
what, that makes life here alone, no London, no visitors,
seem a long trance of pleasure. . . . I’m inducing a state of
peace and sensation feeling — not idea feeling. The truth is
we’ve not seen spring in the country since I was ill at
Ashcham — 1914 — and that had its holiness in spite of the
depression. I think I’ll also dream a poet-prose book;
perhaps make a cake now and then. Now, now — never any
more future skirmishing or past regretting. Relish the
Monday and the Tuesday, and don’t take on the guilt of
sclflshness feeling: for in God’s name I’ve done my share,
with pen and talk, for the human race. I mean young
writers can stand on their own feet. Yes, I deserve a spring
— I owe nobody nothing. Not a letter I need write (there
are the poems in MS all waiting) nor need I have week-
enders. For others can do that as well as I can, this spring.
Now being drowned by the flow of running water, I will
read Whymper till lunch time.

Sunday y March 31st

I would like to tell myself a nice little wild improbable
story to spread my wings after this cramped ant-like morn-
ing — which I will not detail — for details arc the death of
me. Thank God, this time next week I shall be free — free

NINETEEN FORTY

33 >

of entering M.’s corrections and my own into margins.
The story? Oh, about the life of a bird, its cheep cheep —
its brandishing of a twig by my window — its sensations.
Or about Botten becoming one with the mud — the glory
fading — the million tinted flowers sent by the doleful
mourners. All black like a moving pillar box the woman
was — or the man in a black cardboard casing. A story
doesn’t come. No, but I may unfurl a metaphor — No.
The windows very dove grey and dim blue islanded — a
rust red on L. and V.^ and the marslt green and dark like
the floor of the sea. At the back of my head the string is
still wound tight. I will unwind it playing bowls. To carry
the virtues of the sketch — its random reaches, its happy
finds — into the finished work is probably beyond me.
Sydney Smith did in talk.

Saturdayy April 6th

I spent one afternoon at the L.L.,* looking up quotes.
Another buying silk for vests. And we did not dine with
the Hutchinsons to meet Tom and Desmond. And how
glad I was of the drowsy evening. And so at 12.45 yester-
day handed L. the two MSS * and we drove off as happy
as Bank Holiday clerks. That’s off my shoulders! Good or
bad — done. So I felt wings on my shoulders: and brooded
quietly till the tyre punctured: we had to jackal in mid-
road; and I was like a stalk, all crumpled, when we got
here. And it’s a keen spring day; infinitely lit and tinted
and cold and sofl: all the groups of daffodils yellow along
the bank; lost my three games, and want nothing but
sleep.

Monday y May 13th

1 admit to some content, some closing of a chapter and
peace that comes with it, from posting my proofs today. I
admit — because we’re in the third day of *‘thc greatest

* Refers to two elmtrees in the garden. * London Library.

• The manuscript of Roger Fiy: A Biography.

A WRITER’S DIARY

332

battle in liistory”. It began (here) \vith the 8 o’clock wire-
less announcing as I lay half asleep the invasion of Holland
and Belgium. The third day of the Battle of Waterloo.
Apple blossom snowing the garden. A bowl lost in the
pond. Churchill exhorting all men to stand together. “I
have nothing to offer but blood and tears and sweat.”
These vast formless shapes further circulate. They aren’t
substances: but they make everything else minute. Duncan
saw an air battle over Charleston — a silver pencil and a
puff of smoke. Percy has seen the wounded arriving in
their boots. So my little moment of peace comes in a
yawning hollow. But though L. says he has petrol in the
garage for suicide should Hitler win, we go on. It’s the
vastness, and the smallness, that makes this possible. So
intense arc my feelings (about Roger)\ yet the circumfer-
ence (the war) seems to make a hoop round them. No,
I can’t get the odd incongruity of feeling intensely and at
the same time knowing that there’s no importance in that
feeling. Or is there, as I sometimes think, more importance
than ever?

Mondayy May 20th

Tins idea was meant to be more impressive. It bobbed
up I suppose in one of the sentient moments. The war is
like a desperate illness. For a day it entirely obsesses: then
the feeling faculty gives out; next day one is disembodied,
in the air. Then the battery is re-charged and again —
what? Well, the bomb terror. Going to London to be
bombed. And the catastrophe — if they break through:
Channel this morning said to be their objective. Last
night Churchill asked us to reflect, when being bombed,
that we were at least drawing fire from the soldiers,
for once. Desmond and Moore ^ arc at this moment
reading — i.e. talking under the apple trees. A fine windy
morning.

^ Desmond MacCarthy and Professor G. E. Moore, O.M.

333

NINETEEN FORTY

Saturday, May 2 ^th

Then we went up to what has been so far the worst week
in the war. And so remains. On Tuesday evening, after my
freshener, before Tom and \Vm. P.i came, tlie B.B.C.
announced the taking of Amiens and Arras. Tlie French
P.M. told the truth and knocked all our “holding” to
atoms. On Monday they broke through. It’s tedious
picking up details. It seems they raid with tanks and para-
chutists: roads crammed with refugees can’t be bombed.
They crash on. Now arc at Boulogne. But it also seems
these occupations aren’t altogether solid. \Vhat arc the
great armies doing to let this 25 mile hole stay open? The
feeling is we’re outwitted. They’re agile and fearless and
up to any new dodge. The French forgot to blow up
bridges. The Germans seem youthful, fresh, inventive. ^Vc
plod behind. This went on the three London days.

Rodmell burns with rumours. Are we to be bombed,
evacuated? Guns that shake the windows. Hospital ships
sunk. So it comes our way.

Today’s rumour is the Nun in the bus who pays her fare
with a man’s hand.

Tuesday, May s8th

And today at 8, the French P.M. broadcast the treachery
of the Belgian King. The Belgians have capitulated. The
Government is not capitulating. Churchill to broadcast
at 4. A wet dull day.

Wednesday, May sgth

But hope revives. I don’t know why. A desperate battle.
The Allies holding. How sick one gets of the phrase — how
easy to make a Duff Cooper speech about valour; and
history, where one knows the end of the sentence. Still it
cheers, somehow. Poetry as Tom said is easier to write
than prose. 1 could reel off patriotic speeches by the dozen.
L. has been in London. A great thunderstorm. I was

* William Plomcr.

A WRITER’S DIARY

334

walking on the marsh and thought it was the guns on the
channel ports. Then, as they swerved, I conceived a raid
on London; turned on the wireless; heard some prattler;
and then the guns began to lighten; then it rained. Began
P.H.^ again today and threshed and threshed till perhaps
a little grain can be collected. I sent off my Walpole too.
After dinner I began Sidney Smith; plan being to keep
short flights going; P.H. in between. Oh yes — one can’t
plan, any more, a long book. H. Brace cable that they
accept Roger — whom, which. I’d almost forgotten. So
that’s a success: where I’d been expecting failure. It can’t
be so bad as all that. 250 advance. But we shall I suppose
certainly postpone. Reading masses of Coleridge and
Wordsworth letters of a night — curiously untwisting and
burrowing into that plaited nest.

Thursday^ May 30th

Walking today (Nessa’s birthday) by Kingfisher pool
saw my first hospital train — laden, not funereal but
weighty, as if not to shake bones: something — what is the
word I want — grieving and tender and heavy laden and
private — bringing our wounded back carefully through
the green fields at which I suppose some looked. Not that
1 could see them. And the faculty for seeing in imagination
always leaves me so suffused with something partly visual,
partly emotional, I can’t, though it’s very pervasive, catch
it when I come home — the slowness, cadaverousness, grief
of the long heavy train, taking its burden through the
fields. Very quietly it slid into tlie cutting at Lewes.
Instantly wild duck flights of aeroplanes came over head;
manoeuvred; took up positions and passed over Caburn.

Friday, May 31st

Scraps, orts and fragments, as I said in P.H., which is
now bubbling. I’m playing with words: and think I owe
some dexterity to finger exercises here — but the scraps:
Louie has seen Mr. Wcstmacott’s man. “It’s an eyesore”

^ Betwien thi Acts,

NINETEEN TORTY 335

— {lis description offighting near Boulogne. Percy weeding:
“I shall conquer ’em in the end. If I was sure of our win-
ning the other battle . . Raid, said to be warned, last
night. All the scarchliglits in extreme continual vibration:
they have blots of light, bke beads of dew on a stalk. Mr.
Hanna “stood by” half the night. Rumour, very likely:
rumour, which has transported the English in Belgium
who, with their golf sticlu, ball and some nets in a car
coming from Flanders, were taken for parachutists: con-
demned to death; released; and returned to Scaford.
Rumour, via Percy, transplanted them to “somewhere
near Eastbourne” and the villagers armed wth rifles,
pitchforks etc. Shows what a surplus of unused imagina-
tion we possess. We — the educated — check it; as I checked
my cavalry on the down at Telscombc and transformed
them into cows drinking. Making up again. So that I
couldn’t remember, coming home, if I’d come by the
mushroom path or the field. How amazing that I can tap
that old river again: and how satisfying. But will it last?
I made out the whole of the end: and need only fill in:
the faculty, dormant under the weight oiRoger^ springs up.
And to me it’s the voice on the scent again. “Any waste
paper?” Here I was interrupted by the jangling bell. Small
boy in white sweater come, I suppose, for Scouts, and
Mabel says they pester us daily at 37; and make off with
the spoils. Desperate fighting. The same perorations.
Coming through Southcasc I saw Mrs. Cockcll in old
garden hat weeding. Out comes a maid in muslin apron
and cap tied with blue riband. Why? To keep up standards
of civilisation?

Friday, June yth

Just back * this roasting hot evening. The great battle
which decides our life or death goes on. Last night an air
raid here. Today battle sparks. Up till 2.30 this morning.

* From London.

336 A WRITER’S DIARY

Sunday, June gth

I will continue — but can I? The pressure of this battle
wipes out London pretty quick. A gritting day. As sample
of my present mood, I reflect: capitulation will mean All
Jews to be given up. Concentration camps. So to our
garage. That’s behind correcting Roger, playing bowls.
One taps any source of comfort — Leigh Ashton at Charles-
ton yesterday for instance. But today the line is bulging.
Last night aeroplanes (G.?) over: shafts of light following.

I papered my windows. Another reflection: I don’t want
to go to bed at midday: tliis refers to the garage. What
we dread (it’s no exaggeration) is the news that the French
Government have left Paris. A kind of growl behind the
cuckoos and t’other birds. A furnace behind the sky. It
struck me that one curious feeling is, that the writing “I”
has vanished. No audience. No echo. That’s part of one’s
death. Not altogether serious, for I correct Roger, send
finally I hope tomorrow: and could finish P.H. But it is
a fact — this disparition of an echo.

Monday, June loth

A day off. I mean one of those odd lapses of anxiety
which may be false. Anyhow they said this morning that
the line is unbroken — save at certain points. And our army
has left Noi^vay and is going to their help. Anyhow — it’s a
day off — a coal gritty day. L. breakfasted by electric
light. And cool mercifully after the furnace. Today, too,
I sent off my page proofs, and then have read my Roger
for the last time. The Index remains. And I’m in the
doldrums; a little sunk, and open to the suggestion, con-
veyed by the memory of Leonard’s coolness, enforced by
Jolin’s * silence, that it’s one of my failures.

Saturday, June 22nd

Waterloo I suppose. And the fighting goes on in France;
and the terms aren’t yet public; and it’s a heavy grey
day, and I’ve been beaten at bowls, feel depressed and

^ John Lehmann*

NINETEEN FORTY

337

irritated and vow I’ll play no more, but read my book.
My book is Coleridge: Rose Macaulay; the Bessborough
letters — rather a foolish flight inspired by Hary-o: I
would like to find one book and stick to it. But can’t. I
feel, if this is my last lap, oughtn’t I to read Shakespeare?
But can’t. I feel oughtn’t I to finish off P.H.: oughtn’t I
to finish something by way of an end? The end gives its
vividness, even its gaiety and recklessness to the random
daily life. This, I thought yesterday, may be my last walk.
On the down above Baydcan I found some green glass
tubes. The corn was glowing with poppies in it. And I
read my Shelley at night. How delicate and pure and
musical and uncomipt he and Coleridge read, after the
Left Wing Group. How lightly and firmly they put down
their feet, and how they sing; and how they compact; and
fuse and deepen. I wish I could invent a new critical
method — something swifter and lighter and more collo-
quial and yet intense: more to the point and less com-
posed; more fluid and following the flight; than my C.R.
essays. The old problem; how to keep the flight of the
mind, yet be exact. All the difference between the sketch
and the finished work. And now dinner to cook. A role.
Nightly raids in the east and south coast. 6, 3, 22 people
killed nightly.

A high \vind was blowing: Mabel, Louie picking cur-
rants and gooseberries. Then a visit to Charleston threw
another stone into the pond. And at the moment, with
P.H. only to fix upon, I’m loosely anchored. Further, tlie
war — our waiting while the knives sharpen for the oper-
ation — has taken away the outer wall of security. No echo
comes back. I have no surroundings. I have so little
sense of a public that I forget about Roger coming or not
coming out. Those familiar circumvolutions — those stan-
dards — which have for so many years given back an echo
and so thickened my identity are all wide and wild as
the desert now. I mean, there is no “autumn”, no winter.
We pour to the edge of a precipice . . . and then? I can’t
conceive that there will be a 27th June 1941. This cuts
away something even at tea at Charleston. We drop
another aflemoon into the millrace.

338 A WRITER’S DIARY

Wednesday ^ July 24th

Yes, tlicrc are things to write about: but I want at
the moment, the eve of publication moment, to discover
my emotions. They arc fitful: thus not very strong —
nothing like so strong as before The Tears — oh dear,
nothing like. Still they twinge. I wish it were this time
next week. There’ll be Morgan and Desmond. And I fear
Morgan will say — just enough to show he doesn’t like,
but is kind. D. will certainly depress. The Times Lit. Sup.
(after its ill temper about Reviewing) will find chinl«.
T. and T. will be enthusiastic. And — that’s all. I repeat
that two strains, as usual, will develop: fascinating; dull:
life-like; dead. So why do I t^vinge? Knowing it almost by
heart. But not quite. Mrs. Lehmann enthusiastic. John
silent. 1 shall of course be sneered at by those who sniff
at Bloomsbury. I’d forgotten that. But as L. is combing
Sally I can’t concentrate. No room of my own. For
II days I’ve been contracting in the glare of different
faces. It ended yesterday with the W.I.: my talk — it was
talked — about the Dreadnought. A simple, on the whole
natural, friendly occasion. Cups of tea: biscuits; and
Mrs. Chavasse, in a tight dress, presiding: out of respect
for me, it was a Book tea. Miss Gardner had Three Guineas
pinned to her frock: Mrs. Thompsett Three Weeks: and
someone else a silver spoon. No I can’t go on to Ray’s *
death, about which I know nothing, save that that very
large woman, with the shock of grey hair, and the bruised
lip; that monster, whom I remember typical of young
womanhood, has suddenly gone. She had a kind of
representative quality, in her white coat and trousers;
wall building; disappointed, courageous, ^vithout — what?
— imagination?

Lady Oxford said that there was no virtue in saving,
more in spending. She hung over my neck in a spasm of
tears. Mrs. Campbell has cancer. But in a twinkling she
recovered, began to spend. A cold chicken, she said, was
always under cover on the sideboard at my service. The
country people used butter. She was beautifully dressed

' Ray Strachey.

NINETEEN FORTY 339

in a rayed silk, witli a dark blue tic; a dark blue fluted
Russian cap with a red flap. This was given her by her
milliner: the fruit of spending.

All the walls, the protecting and reflecting walls, wear
so terribly thin in this war. There’s no standard to write
for: no public to echo back; even the “tradition” has
become transparent. Hence a certain energy and reckless-
ness — part good part bad I daresay. But it’s the only line
to take. And perhaps the walls, if violently beaten against,
will finally contain me. I feel tonight still veiled. The veil
will be lifted tomorrow when my book comes out. That’s
what may be painful: may be cordial. And then I may
feel once more round me the wall I’ve missed — or vacancy?
or chill? I make these notes, but am tired of notes, tired
of Gide, tired of dc Vigny notebooks. I want something
sequacious now and robust. In the first days of the war
I could read notes only.

Thursday^ July z^th

I’m not very nervous at the moment: indeed at worst
it’s only a skin deep nervousness; for after all, the main
people approve: still I shall be relieved if Morgan approves.
That I suppose I shall know tomorrow. The first review
(Lynd) says: “deep imaginative sympathy . . . makes him
an attractive figure (in spite of wild phrases): There
is little drama ... at the same time those interested in
modern art will find it of absorbing interest . .

What a curious relation is mine with Roger at this
moment — I who have given him a kind of shape after
his death. Was he like that? I feel very much in his
presence at the moment; as if I were intimately con-
nected with him: as if we together had given birth to this
vision of him: a child bom of us. Yet he had no power to
alter it. And yet for some years it will represent him.

Friday ^ July 26th

I think I have taken, say a good second, judging from
the Lit. Sup. review. No Morgan. Tijnes say it takes a

A WRITER’S DIARY

340

very high place indeed among biographies. Times say I
have a genius for the relevant. Times (art critic I gather)
goes on to analyse Roger’s tones etc. Times intelligent,
but not room for more. It’s a nice quiet feeling now. With
my Coleridge beneath me, and this over, as it really very
nearly (how I hate that clash) is, I’m aware of something
permanent and real in my existence. By the way, I’m
rather proud of having done a solid work. I am content,
somehow. But when I read my post it’s like putting my
hand in a jar of leeches and so I’ve a mint of dull dreary
letters to write. But it’s an incredibly lovely — yes lovely is
the word — transient, changing, warm, capricious summer
evening. Also I won two games. A large hedgehog was
found drowned in the lily pool; L. tried to resuscitate
it. An amusing sight. 2/6 is offered by the Government
for live hedgehogs. I’m reading Ruth Benedict with
pressure of suggestions — about culture patterns — which
suggests rather too much. Six volumes of Aug. Hare also
suggest — little articles. But I’m very peaceful, momen-
tarily, this evening. Saturday I suppose a no-review day.
Immune is again the right word. No, John hasn’t read
it. When the twelve planes went over, out to sea, to
Bght, last evening, 1 had I think an individual, not
communal B.B.C. dictated feeling. I almost instinctively
wished them luck. I should like to be able to take scientific
notes of reactions. Invasion may be tonight: or not at all
— that’s Joubert’s summing up. And — I had something
else to say — but what? And dinner to get ready.

Friday^ August 2nd

Complete silence surrounds that book. It might have
sailed into the blue and been lost. "One of our books did
not return” as the B.B.C. puts it. No review by Morgan:
no review at all. No letter. And though I suspect Morgan
has refused, finding it unpalatable, still I remain — yes,
honestly— quiet minded and prepared to face a complete,
lasting silence.

34 >

NINETEEN FORTY

Sunday^ August 4th

Just time, while Judith and Leslie * 6nish their game,
to record on a great relief — Desmond’s review really says
all I wanted said. The book delights friends and the
younger generation say Yes, yes, we know him: and it’s
not only delightful but important. That’s enough. And
it gave me a very calm rewarded feeling — not the old
triumph, as over a novel, but the feeling I’ve done what
was asked of me, given my friends what they wanted. Just
as I’d decided I’d given tliem nothing but the materials
for a book I hadn’t written. Now I can be content: needn’t
worry what people think: for Desmond is a good bell-
ringer; and will start the others — I mean, the talk among
intimates will follow, more or less, his lines. Herbert Read
and Maccoll have bit their hardest; put their case; now
only Morgan remains, and perhaps a personal dart from
W. Lewis.

Tuesday y August 6th

Yes, I was very happy again when I saw Clive’s blue
envelope at breakfast (with John) this morning: It’s
Clive almost — what? — devout; no, quiet, serious, com-
pletely without sneer, approving. As good in its way as the
best of my books — the best biography for many years
— the first part as good as the last and no break. So I’m
confirmed in what I felt, even when I had that beak
pecking walk in March wth a temperature of loi with
Leonard— confirmed in what I feel — that the first part is
really more generally interesting, though less complex and
intensified than the last. I’m sure it was necessary — as a
solid pavement for the whole to stand on.

Saturday^ August loth

And then Morgan slightly damped me: but I was damp
already from Leslie hum haw the night before and the
day before and again tomorrow. So Morgan and Vita

* Judith Stephen and Leslie Humphrey.

A WRITER’S DIARY

342

sliglitly damped: and Bob slightly elated and Ethel, and
some old boy in the Spectator, attacking Read. But God’s
truth, that’s the end of it all. No more reviews and if I
had solitude — no men driving stakes, digging pink gun
emplacements, and no neighbours, doubtless I could
expand and soar — into P.H., into Coleridge; but must
first — damn John — re-write the Incessant com-

pany is as bad as solitary confinement.

Friday, August i6th

Third edition ordered. L. said, at 37 on Wednesday
“It’s booming.’’ The boom is dulled by our distance.
And why docs a word of tepidity depress more than a
word of praise exalts? I don’t know. I refer to Walcy:
I don’t refer to Pamela — great work of art etc. \Vcll, it’s
taking its way. It’s settling. It’s done. And I’m writing
P.H., which leaves a spare hour. Many air raids. One as
I walked. A haystack was handy. But walked on, and so
home. All clear. Then sirens again. Then Judith and
Leslie. Bowls. Then Mrs. Ebbs etc. to borrow table. All
clear. I must make a stopgap for the last hour, or I shall
dwindle, as I’m doing here. But P.H, is a concentration
— a screw. So I will go in; and read Hare and write to
Ethel. Very hot, even out here.

They came very close. We lay down under the tree.
The sound was like someone sawing in the air just above
us. We lay flat on our faces, hands behind head. Don’t
close your teeth, said L. They seemed to be sawing at
something stationary'. Bombs shook the windows of my
lodge. Will it drop I asked? If so, we shall be broken
together. I thought, I think, of nothingness — flatness, my
mood being flat. Some fear 1 suppose. Should we take
Mabel to garage. Too risky to cross the garden L. said.
Then anoUier came from Newhaven. Hum and saw and
buzz all round us. A horse neighed in the marsh. Very
sultry. Is it thunder? I said. No, guns, said L., from
Ringmer, from Charleston way. Then slowly the sound
lessened. Mabel in kitchen said the windows shook. Air

* Thi LeoJiing Towtr.

NINETEEN FORTY 343

raid still on: distant planes; Leslie playing bowls. I well
beaten. My books only gave me pain, Charlotte Bronte
said. Today I agree. Very heavy, dull and damp. This
must at once be cured. The all clear. 5 to 7. 1.^4 down last
night.

Monday^ August igth

Yesterday, i8th, Sunday, there was a roar. Right on
top of us they came. I looked at the plane, like a minnow
at a roaring shark. Over they flashed— three I think.
Olive green. Then pop pop pop— German? Again pop
pop pop, over Kingston. Said to be five bombers hedge
hopping on their way to London. The closest shave so far.
144 brought down — no that was last time. And no raid
(so far) today. Rehearsal. I cannot read Remorse. Why
not say so?

Friday y August 23rd

Book flopped. Sales down to 15 a day since air raid on
London. Is that the reason? Will it pick up?

Wednesday^ August 28th

How I should like to write poetry all day long — that’s
the gift to me of poor X, who never reads poetry because
she hated it at school. She stayed from Tuesday to Sun-
day night, to be exact: and almost had me down. Why?
Because (partly) she has the artist’s temperament without
being an artist. She’s temperamental, but has no outlet.

I find her charming: individual: honest and somehow
pathetic. Her curious obtusity, her stalcncss of mind, is
perceptible to her. And she hesitates. Ought one to make
up? Y, says yes — I say no. The truth is she has no instinct
for colour: no more than for music or pictures. A great
deal of force and spirit and yet always at the leap some-
thing balks her. I can imagine her crying herself to sleep.
So, having brought no rations, or book, she floundered
on here. I called her, to mitigate her burden. My good

M

A WRITER’S DIARY

344

dog. My Afghan hound — with her long too thick legs and
her long body; and the shock of wild unbrushed hair on
top. I’m glad I’m so nice looking, she said. And she is.
But well, it taught me, that week of unintermittent inter-
ruptions, bowls, tea parties, droppings in, what public
school is like — no privacy. A good rub w’ith a coarse
towel for my old mind, no doubt. And Judith and Leslie
arc about to play bowls. This is why, my first solitary
morning, after London and the protracted air raid — from
9.30 to 4 a.m. — I was so light, so free, so happy I wrote
what I call P.H. poetry. Is it good? I suppose not, very.

I should say, to placate V. W. when she wishes to know
what was happening in August, 1940 — that the air raids
arc now at their prelude. Invasion, if it comes, must come
within three weeks. The harrying of the public is now in
full swing. The air saws: the wasps drone; the siren — it’s
now Weeping Willie in the papers — is as punctual as the
vespers . . . VVc’vc not had our raid yet, we say. Two in
London. One caught me in the London Library. There
I saw reading in Scrutiny that Mrs. W. after all was better
than the young. At this I was pleased. John Buchan —
“V. W. is our best critic since M. Arnold and wiser and
justcr — ” also pleased me. I must write to Pamela. Sales
a little better.

P.S. to the last page. We went out on to the terrace;
began playing. A large two decker plane came heavily
and slowly. L. said a Wellesley something. A training
plane said Leslie. Suddenly there was pop pop from be-
Itind the church. Practising we said. The plane circled
slowly out over the marsh and back, very close to the
ground and to us. Then a whole volley of pops (like bags
burst) came together. The plane swung off, slow and
heavy and circling towards Lewes. Wc looked. Leslie saw
the German black cross. All the workmen were looking.
It’s a German: that dawned. It was the enemy. It dipped
among the fir trees over Lewes and did not rise. Then we
heard the drone. Looked up and saw two planes very
high. They made for us. We started to shelter in the lodge.
But they wheeled and Leslie saw the English sign. So we
watched — they side slipped, glided, swooped and roared

NINETEEN FORTY 345

for about five minutes round the fallen plane as if identi-
fying and making sure. Then made off towards London.
Our version is that it was a wounded plane, looking for a
landing. “It was a Jerry sure enough,” the men said:
the men who are making a gun hiding by the gate. It
would have been a peaceful matter of fact death to be
popped off on the terrace playing bowls this very fine
cool sunny August evening.

Saturday y August 31st

Now we are in the war. England is being attacked. I
got this feeling for the first time completely yesterday;
the feeling of pressure, danger, horror. The feeling is that
a battle is going on — a fierce battle. May last four weeks.
Am I afraid? Intermittently. The worst of it is one’s mind
won’t work with a spring next morning. Of course this
may be the beginning of invasion. A sense of pressure.
Endless local stories. No — it’s no good trying to capture
the feeling of England being in a battle. I daresay if I
write fiction and Coleridge and not that infernal bomb
article for U.S.A. I shall swim into quiet water.

Monday y September 2nd

There might be no war, the past two days. Only one
raid warning. Perfectly quiet nights. A lull after the
attacks on London.

Thursday y September 3th

Hot, hot, hot. Record heat wave, record summer if
we kept records this summer. At 2.30 a plane zooms:
10 minutes later air raid sounds; 20 later, ail clear. Hot,

I repeat; and doubt if I’m a poet. H. P. hard labour.
Brain w — no, I can’t think of the word — yes, wilts. An
idea. All writers arc unhappy. The picture of the world
in books is thus too dark. The wordless arc the happy:
women in cottage gardens: Mrs. Chavasse. Not a true
picture of the world; only a writer’s picture. Arc musicians,
painters, happy? Is their world happier?

346 A WRITER’S DIARY

Tuesday, September loth

Back from half a day in London — perhaps our strangest
visit. When ^ve got to Gower Street a barrier wiili diver-
sion on it. No sign of damage. But coming to Doughty
Street a crowd. Then Miss Perkins at the window. Aleck.
S.‘ roped ofT. Wardens there. Not allowed in. The house
about 30 yards from ours struck at one in the morning by a
bomb. Completely ruined. Another bomb in the square
still uncxplodcd. We walked round the back. Stood by
Jane Harrison’s house. The house was still smouldering.
Tliat is a great pile of bricks. Underneath all the people
who had gone down to their shelter. Scraps of cloth
hanging to the bare walls at the side still standing. A
looking glass I think swinging. Like a tooth knocked out
— a clean cut. Our house undamaged. No windows yet
broken — perhaps the bomb lias now broken them. We
saw Bernal with an arm band jumping on top of the
bricks. Who lived there? I suppose the casual young men
and women I used to see from my window; the flat
dwellers who used to have flower pots and sit in the
balcony. All now blown to bits. The garage man at the
back — blear eyed and jerky — told us he had been blown
out of his bed by the explosion: made to take shelter in a
church. “A hard cold scat,” he said, “and a small boy
lying in my arms. I cheered when the all clear sounded.
I’m aching all over.” He said the Jerries had been over
for three nights tr^'ing to bomb Kings Cross. They had
destroyed half Argyll Street, also shops in Grays Inn Road.
Then Mr. Pritchard ambled up. Took the news as calm
as a grig. “They actually have the impertinence to say
this will make us accept peace . . .!” he said: he watches
raids from his flat roof and sleeps like a hog. So, after talk-
ing to Miss Perkins, Mrs. Jackson — but both serene — Miss
P. had slept on a camp bed in her shelter — we went on to
Grays Inn. Left the car and saw Holborn. A vast gap at
the top of Chancery Lane. Smoking still. Some great shop
entirely destroyed: the hotel opposite like a shell. In a
wine shop there were no windows left. People standing at

^ Meckicnburgh Square.

NINETEEN FORTY 347

the tables — I think drink being served. Heaps of blue green
glass in the road at Chancery Lane. Men breaking ofl'
fragments left in the frames. Glass falling. Then into
Lincoln’s Inn. To the M.S. office; windows broken, but
house untouched. Wc went over it. Deserted. Wet pass-
ages. Glass on stairs. Doors locked. So back to the car. A
great block of traffic. The Cinema behind Madame
Tussaud’s torn open: the stage visible; some decoration
swinging. All the R. Park houses with broken w'indows,
but undamaged. And then miles and miles of orderly
ordinary streets — all Bayswatcr, and Sussex Square as
usual — streets empty — faces set and eyes bleared. In
Chancery Lane I saw a man with a barrow of music
books. My typist’s office destroyed. Then at Wimbledon
a siren: people began nmning. We drove, through almost
empty streets, as fast as possible. Horses taken out of the
shafts. Cars pulled up. Then the all clear. The people I
think of now are the very grimy lodging house keepers,
say in Hcathcotc Street: with another night to face; old
wretched women standing at their doors; dirty, miserable.
Well — as Nessa said on the phone, it’s coming very near.
I had thought myself a coward for suggesting tliai we
should not sleep two nights at 37. I was greatly relieved
when Miss P. telephoned advising us not to stay, and L.
agreed.

Wednesday y September nth

Churchill has just spoken. A clear, measured, robust,
speech. Says the invasion is being prepared. It’s for the
next two weeks apparently if at all. Ships and barges
massing at French ports. The bombing of London of
course preparatory to invasion. Our majestic City— etc.,
which touches me, for I feel London majestic. Our
courage etc. Another raid last night on London. Time
bomb struck the Palace. John rang up. He was in Meck-
lenburgh Square the night of the raid: wants the Press
moved at once. L. is to go up on Friday. Our windows are
broken, John says. He is lodging out somewhere. Meck-
lenburgh Square evacuated. A plane shot down before

348 A WRITER’S DIARY

our eyes just before tea: over the racecourse; a scuffle;
a swerve; then a plunge; and a burst of thick black smoke.
Percy says the pilot baled out. We count now on an air
raid about 8.30. Anyhow, whether or not, we hear the
sinister sawing noise about then, which loudens and fades;
then a pause; then another comes. “They’re at it again”
we say as wc sit, I doing my work. L. making cigarettes.
Now and then there’s a thud. The windows shake. So wc
know London is raided again.

Thursday^ September 12th

A gale has risen. Weather broken. Armada weather.
No sound of planes today, only wind. Terrific air traffic
last night. But the raid beaten off by new London bar-
rage. Tliis is cheering. If wc can hold out this week —
next week — week after — if the weather’s turned — if the
force of the raids on London is broken — wc go up to-
morrow to see John about moving Press; to patch the
windows, rescue valuables and get letters — if, that is,
we’re allowed in the Square. Oh, blackberrying I con-
ceived, or rc-mouldcd, an idea for a Common History
book — to read from one end of literature including bio-
graphy; and range at will, consecutively.

Friday f September 13th

A strong feeling of invasion in the air. Roads crowded
with army wagons, soldiers. Just back from hard day in
London. Raid, unheard by us, started outside Wimbledon.
A sudden stagnation. People vanished. Yet some cars
went on. Wc decided to visit lavatory on the hill: shut.
So L. made use of tree. Pouring. Guns in the distance.
Saw a pink brick shelter. That was the only interest of
our journey— our talk with the man, woman and child
who were living there. They had been bombed at Clap-
ham. Their house unsafe; so they hiked to Wimbledon.
Preferred this unfinished gun emplacement to a refugee
over-crowded house. They had a roadman’s lamp; a sauce-
pan and could boil tea. The nightwatchman wouldn’t

NINETEEN FORTY

349

accept their tea; had his own; someone gave them a bath.
In one of the Wimbledon houses there was only a care-
taker. Of course they couldn’t house us. But she Avas very
nice — gave them a sit down. We all talked. Middicclass

smartish lady on her way to Epsom
regretted she couldn’t have the
child. But we wouldn’t part wth
her, they said — the man a voluble
emotional Kelt, the woman placid
Saxon. As long as she’s all right we
don’t mind. They sleep on some
shavings. Bombs had dropped on
the Common. He a housepaintcr.

Very friendly and hospitable. They
liked liaving people in to talk. What will they do? The
man thought Hitler would soon be over. The lady in the
cocks hat said Never. Twice we left: more guns: came
back. At last started, keeping an eye on shelters and
people’s behaviour. Reached Russell Hotel. No John.
Loud gunfire. We sheltered. Started for Mccklcnburgh
Square; met John, who said the Square still closed; so
lunched in the hotel: decided the Press emergency — to
employ Garden City Press — in 20 minutes. Raid still on.
WsJked to Mccklcnburgh Square.

He laid rather a thin
rug on the siep for me
to sit on. An ofliccr
looked in. **Making
ready for the invasion,”
said the man, as if it
were going off in
about ten minutes.

Saturday^ September 14th

A sense of invasion — that is lorries of soldiers and
machines — like cranes — walloping along to Newhaven.
An air raid is on. A little pop rattle wluch I take to be
machine gun, just gone off. Planes roaring and roaring.
Percy and L. say some are English. Mabel comes out and
looks: asks if we want fish fried or boiled.

The great advantage of this page is that it gives me a
fidget ground. Fidgets; caused by losing at bowls and
invasion: caused by another howling banshee, by having
no book I must read: and so on. I am reading S6vign6:
how recuperative last week; gone stale a little with that
mannered and sterile Burney now: even through the
centuries his acid dandified somehow supercilious well

350 A WRITER’S DIARY

what? — can’t find the word — this manner of his, this
character penetrates; and moreover reminds me of some-
one I dislike. Is it Logan? There’s a ceremony in him that
reminds me of Tom. There’s a parched artificial cruelty

and — oh the word! the word! Am I over-
I suggest sensitive to character in writing? I tliink we
supercilious, modems lack love. Our torture makes us

writhe. But I can’t go into that — a phrase
that brings in Old Rose, to whom I mean to write. One
always thinks there’s a landing place coming. But there
aint. A stage, a branch, an end. I dislike writing letters of
thanks about Roger. I’ve said it so many times. I think I
will begin my new book by reading Ifor Evans, 6d. Penguin.

Monday^ September i6th

Well, we’re alone in our ship. A very wet stormy day.
Mabel * stumped off, with her bunions, carrying her bags
at lo. Thank you for all your kindness; she said the same
to us both. Also would I give her a reference? “I hope we
shall meet again,” I said. She said “Oh no doubt” thinking
I referred to death. So that 5 years’ uneasy mute but very
passive and calm relation is over: a heavy unsunned pear
dropped from a twig. And we’re freer, alone. No respon-
sibility: for her. The house solution is to have no residents.
But I’m stupid; have been dallying with Mr. Williamson’s
confessions appalled by his egocentricity. Are all writers
as magnified in their own eyes? He can’t move an inch
from the glare of his own personality — his fame. And I’ve
never read one of those immortal works. To Charleston
this afternoon, after provisioning for our siege in Lewes.
Last night we saw tinsel sparks here and there in the sky
over the flat. L. thought they were shells bursting from the
London barrage. Great air traffic all night. Some loud
explosions. I listened for church bells, thinking largely, I
admit, of finding ourselves prisoned here %vith Mabel. She
thought the same. Said that if one is to be killed one will be
killed. Prefers death in a Holloway shelter playing cards —
naturally — to death here.

* The cook, who had decided lo go and live with her sister.

NINETEEN FORTY

35 «

Tuesday^ September lyth

No invasion. High wind. Yesterday in tlie Public
Library I took down a book of X.’s criticism. This turned
me against writing my book. London Libraiy' atmosphere
effused. Turned me against all literary criticism; these so
clever, so airless, so flcsliless ingenuities and attempts to
prove — that T. S. Eliot for example is a worse critic llian
X. Is all literary criticism that kind of exhausted air? —
book dust, London Library, air. Or is it only that X. is a
second hand, frozen fingered, university specialist, don
trying to be creative, don all stuffed with books, writer?
Would one say the same of the Common Reader? I dipped
for five minutes and put the book back depressed. The
man asked “What do you want, Mrs. Woolf?” I said a
history of English literature. But was so sickened I couldn’t
look. There were so many. Nor could I remember the
name of Stopford Brooke.

I continue, after winning two games of bowls. Our
island is a desert island. No letters from Meek. No coffee.
Papers between 3 and 4. Can’t get on to Meek, when we
ring up. Some letters lake 5 days coming. Trains uncertain.
One must get out at Croydon. Angelica goes to Hilton via
Oxford. So we, L. and I, are almost cut off. We found a
young soldier in the garden last night, coming back. “Can
I speak to Mr. Woolf?” I thought it meant billeting for
certain. No. Could we lend a typewriter? Officer on hill
had gone and taken his. So we produced my portable.
Then he said; “Pardon sir. Do you play chess?” He plays
chess with passion. So we asked him to tea on Saturday to
play. He is with the anti-aircraft searchlight on the hill.
Finds it dull. Can’t get a bath. A straight good natured
young man. Professional soldier? I think the son, say of an
estate agent, or small shopkeeper. Not public school. Not
lower class. But I shall investigate. “Sorry to break into
your private life” he said. Also that on Saturday he went
to the pictures in Lewes.

352

A WRITER’S DIARY

Wednesday^ September i8th

“W^c have need of all our courage” are the words that
come to the surface tliis morning: on hearing that all our
windoNvs are broken, ceilings down, and most of our china
smashed at Mecklcnburgh Square. The bomb exploded.
^Vhy did we ever leave Tavistock? What’s the good of
thinking that? We were about to start for London, when
wc got on to Miss Perkins who told us. The Press — what
remains — is to be moved to Letchworth. A grim morning.
How can one settle into Michelet and Coleridge? As I say,
wc have need of courage. A very bad raid last night on
London — wailing for the wireless. But I did forge ahead
with P.H. all the same.

Thursday^ September igth

Less need of courage today. I suppose the impression of
Miss P.’s voice describing the damage wears off.

Wednesday^ September 2 gth

All day — Monday — in London; in the flat; dark; carpets
nailed to windows; ceilings down in patches; heaps of grey
dust and china under kitchen table; back rooms untouched.
A lovely September day — tender — three days of tender
weather — John came. \S^c arc moved to Letchworth. The
Garden City was moving us that day. Roger surprisingly
sells. The bomb in Brunswick Square exploded. I was in
the baker’s. Comforted the agitated worn women.

Sunday^ September sgth

A bomb dropped so close I cursed L. for slamming the
window. I was writing to Hugh, and the pen jumped from
my finger. Raid still on. It’s like a sheep dog, chasing a fox
out of the fold. You sec them yapping and biting and then
the marauder, dropping a bone, a bomb towards New-
haven, flies. All clear. Bowls. Villagers at their doors.
Cold. All now become familiar. I was thinking (among

NINETEEN FORTY

353

Other tilings) that this is a lazy life. Breakfast in bed. Read
in bed. Bath. Order dinner. Out to Lodge. After re-
arranging my room (turning table to get the sun: church
on right; window left: a new very lovely \iew) tunc up,
with cigarette: write till 12: stop: visit L.: look at papers;
return; type till i. Listen in: Lunch. Sore jaw: can’t bite.
Read papers. Walk to Southease. Back 3. Gather and
arrange apples. Tea. \Vrite a letter. Bowls. Type again.
Read Michelet or write here. Cook dinner. Music.
Embroidery, g.30 read (or sleep) till 1 1.30. Bed. Compare
with the old London day. Tliree afternoons someone
coming. One night, dinner party. Saturday a walk. Thurs-
day shopping. Tuesday going to tea with Ncssa. One City
walk. Telephone ringing. L. to meetings. K. M, or Robson
botlicring. That was an average week: with Friday to
Monday here. I think, now we’re marooned, 1 ought to
cram in a little more reading. Yet why? A happy, a very
free, and disengaged — a life that rings from one simple
melody to another. Yes: why not enjoy this after all those
years of the other? Yet 1 compare with Miss Perkins day.

Wednesday j October 2nd

Ought I not to look at the sunset rather than write this?
A flush of red in the blue; the haystack on the marsh
catches tlie glow; behind me, the apples are red in the
trees. L. is gathering them. Now a plume of smoke goes
from the train under Caburn. And all the air a solemn
stillness holds. Till 8.30 when the cadaverous twanging in
the sky begins; the planes going to London. Well it’s an
hour still to that. Cows feeding. Tlie elm tree sprinkling
its little leaves against the sky. Our pear tree swagged
with pears; and the weathercock above the triangular
church tower above it. Why try again to make the familiar
catalogue, from which sometliing escapes. Should I think
of death? Last night a great heavy plunge of bomb under
the window. So near wc both started. A plane had passed
dropping this fruit. Wc went on to the terrace. Trinkets
of stars sprinkled and glittering. All quiet. The bombs
dropped on Itford HiU. There arc two by the river,

A WRITER’S DIARY

354

marked willi white wooden crosses, still unburst. I said to
L.: 1 don’t want to die yet. The chances arc against it. But
they’re aiming at the railway and the power works. They
get closer ev'cry time. Caburn was crowned with what
looked like a settled moth, wings extended — a Messer-
schmitt it was, shot down on Sunday. I had a nice gallop
tliis morning with Coleridge — Sara. I’m to make ^20
with two articles. Books still held up. And Spiras free, and
Margot * writes to say “I did it” and adds ‘‘a long letter
all about yourself and what you believe.” What do 1?
Can’t at the moment remember. Oh I try to imagine how
one’s killed by a bomb. I’ve got it fairly vivid — the sensa-
tion: but can’t see anything but suffocating nonentity fol-
lowing after. I shall think — oh I wanted another 10 years
— not this — and shan’t, for once, be able to describe it. It
— I mean death; no, the scrunching and scrambling, the
crushing of my bone shade in on my very active eye and
brain: the process of putting out the light — painful? Yes,
Terrifying. I suppose so. Then a swoon; a drain; two or
three gulps attempting consciousness — and then dot dot
dot.

Sunday j October 6 th

I snatch this page with Anreps and Ruth Beresford
imminent to say — what? Will it ever seem strange that L.
and I walking on the marsh first look at a bomb crater:
then listen to the German drone above: then I take two
paces nearer L., prudently deciding that two birds had
better be killed with one stone? They got Lewes at last
yesterday.

Saturday, October 12th

I would like to pack my day rather fuller: most reading
must be munching. If it were not treasonable to say so, a
day like this is almost too — I won’t say happy: but amen-
able. Tlie tunc varies, from one nice melody to another.
All is played (today) in such a theatre. Hills and fields; I

^ Lady Oxford.

NINETEEN FORTY 355

can’t stop looking; October blooms; brown plough; and
the fading and freshening of the marsh. Now the mist
comes up. And one thing’s “pleasant” after another:
breakfast, writing, walking, tea, bowls, reading, sweets,
bed. A letter from Rose about her day. I let it almost break
mine. Mine recovers. The globe rounds again. Behind it —
oh yes. But 1 was thinking I must intensify. Partly Rose.
Partly I’m terrified of passive acquiescence. I live in in-
tensity. In London, now, or two years ago. I’d be owling
through the streets. More pack and thrill than here. So I
must supply that — how? I think book inventing. And
there’s always the chance of a rough wave: no, I won’t
once more turn my magnifying glass on that. Scraps of
memoirs come so coolingly to my mind. Wound up by
those three little articles (one sent today) I unwound a
page about Thoby. Fish forgotten. I must invent a dinner.
But it’s all so heavenly free and easy — L. and I alone. I’ve
my rug on hand too. Another pleasure. And all the clothes
drudgery, Sybil drudgery, society drudgery obliterated.
But I want to look back on these war years as years of posi-
tive something or other. L. gathering apples. Sally barks.
I imagine a village invasion. Queer the contraction of life
to the village radius. Wood bought enough to stock many
winters. All our friends arc isolated over winter fires.
Chance of interruption small now. No cars. No petrol.
Trains uncertain. And we on our lovely free autumn
island. But I will read Dante, and for my trip through
English literature book. I was glad to sec the C.R. all
spotted with readers at the Free Library to which I think
of belonging.

Thursday, October lyth

Our private luck has turned. John says Tavistock Square
is no more.^ If that’s so, I need no longer wake in the night
thinking the Wolves luck has taken a downward turn. For
the first time they were rash and foolish. Second, an urgent
request from Harpers Bazaar for an article or story. So

* The house which we still had on lease in Tavistock Square was
completely destroyed by a bomb.

356 A WRITER’S DIARY

that tree, far from being barren, as I thought, is fruit bear-
ing. And I’ve spent 1 don’t know how much brain nerve
earning 30 gns. with three little articles. But I say, the
effort has its reward; for I’m worth, owing to that insect
like conscience and diligence, £^120 to tlic U.S.A. A per-
fect day — a red admiral feasting on an apple day. A red
rotten apple lying on the grass; butterfly on it, beyond a
soft blue warm coloured down and field. Everything drop-
ping through soft air to rest on the earth. The light is now
fading. Soon the siren: then the twang of plucked strings
. . . But it’s almost forgettable still; the nightly operation
on the tortured London. Mabel wants to leave it. L. saw-
ing wood. The funny little cross on the church shows
against the downs. We go up tomorrow. A mist is rising;
a long fleece of white on the marshes. I must black out. I
had so much to say. I am filling my mind slowly with
Elizabethans: that is to say letting my mind feed like the
Red Admiral — the siren, just as I had drawn the curtains.
Now the unpleasant part begins. Wlio’ll be killed tonight?
Not us, 1 suppose. One doesn’t think of that — save as a
quickcncr. Indeed I often think our Indian summer was
deserved: after all those London years. I mean, this
quickens it. Every day seen against a very faint shade of
bodily risk. And I returned to P.H. today; and am to
transfer my habitual note taking I think — what I do on
odd days — to random reading. The idea is, accumulate
notes. C 5 h and I’ve mastered the iron curtain for my brain.
Down I shut when I’m tied tight. No reading, no writing.
No claims, no “must” I walk — yesterday in the rain over
the Piddinghoc down — a new line.

Sunday y October 20th

The most — what? — impressive, no, that’s not it — sight
in London on Friday was the queue, mostly children with
suitcases, outside Warren Street tube. This was about
11.30. We thought they were evacuees waiting for a bus.
But there they were, in a much longer line, with women,
men, more bags, blankets, sitting still at 3. Lining up for
the shelter in the night’s raid — wluch came of course. Thus,

NINETEEN FORTY

357

if they left the tube at 6 (a bad raid on Thursday) they
were back again at ii. So to Tavistock Square.^ \Vith a
sigh of relief saw a heap of ruins. Three houses, I should
say, gone. Basement all rubble. Only relics an old basket
chair (bought in Fitzroy Square days) and Penman’s
board To I>ct. Otherwise bricks and wood splinters. One
glass door in the next house hanging. I could just see a
piece of my studio wall standing; othenWse rubble where
I wrote so many books. Open air where we sat so many
nights, gave so many parties. The hotel not touched. So
to Meek.* All again. Litter, glass, black soft dust, plaster
powder. Miss T. and Miss E. in trousers, overalls and
turbans, sweeping. I noted the flutter of Miss T.’s hands:
the same as Miss Perkins’. Of course friendly and hospit-
able in the extreme. Jaunty jerky talk. Repetitions. So
sorry wc hadn’t had her card ... to save you the shock.
It’s awful . . . Upstairs she propped a leaning bookcase for
us. Books all over dining room floor. In my sitting room
glass all over Mrs. Hunter’s cabinet — and so on. Only the
drawing room with windows almost whole. A wind blowing
though. I began to hunt out diaries. What could wc salvage
in this little car? Danvin and the silver, and some glass and
china.

Then lunch off tongue, in the drawing room. John came.
I forgot The Voyage oj the Beagle. No raid the whole day.
So about 2.30 drove home.

Exhilaration at losing possessions — save at times I want
my books and chairs and carpets and beds. How I worked
to buy them — one by one — and the pictures. But to be free
of Meek., would now be a relief. Almost certainly it will be
destroyed — and our queer tenancy of that sunny flat over
. . . In spite of the move and the expense, no doubt, if we
save our things we shall be cheaply quit — I mean, if we’d
stayed at 52 and lost all our possessions. But it’s odd — the
relief at losing possessions. I should like to start life, in
peace, almost bare — free to go anywhere. Can we be rid
of Meek, though?

* Our house. No. 5a, had been destroyed by a bomb.

* Our house, 37 Meddenburgh Square, wrecked by a bomb.

358 A WRITER’S DIARY

Friday^ November ist

A gloomy evening, spiritually: alone over the fire — and
by way of conversation, apply to this too stout volume. My
Times book for the week is E. F. Benson’s last autobiography
— in which lie tried to rasp himself clean of his barnacles,

I learn there the perils of glibness. I too can flick phrases.
He said, “One must discover new depths in oneself.” Well
1 don’t bother about that here. I will note, though, the
perils of glibness. And add, considering how I feel in my
fingers the weight of every word, even of a review, need I
feci guilty?

Sunday^ November ^rd

Yesterday the river burst its banks. The marsh is now a
sea with gulls on it. L. and I walked down to the hanger.
^Vater broken, white, roaring, pouring down through the
gap by the pillbox. A bomb exploded last month; old
Thompsett told me it took a month to mend. For some
reason (bank weakened Everest says by pill-box) it burst
again. Today the rain is tremendous. And gale. As if dear
old nature were kicking up her heels. Down to the hanger
again. Flood deeper and fuller. Bridge cut off. Water made
road impassable by the farm. So all my marsh walks are
gone — until? Another break in the bank. It comes over in
a cascade: the sea is unfathomable. Yes, now it has crept
up round Botten’s haystack — the haystack in the floods —
and is at the bottom of our field. Lovely if the sun were out.
Medieval in the mist tonight. I am happy, quit of my
money-making; back at P.H. writing in spurts; covering,
I’m glad to say, a small canvas. Oh the freedom

Tuesday^ November 5th

The haystack in the floods is of such incredible beauty
. . . When I look up I see all the marsh water. In the sun
deep blue, gulls caraway seeds: snowstorms: Atlantic floor:
yellow islands: leafless trees: red cottage roofs. Oh may the
flood last for ever. A virgin lip: no bungalows; as it was

NINETEEN FORTY

359

in the beginning. Now it’s lead grey with the red leaves
in front. Our inland sea. Caburn is become a cliff. I \N as
thinking: the University fills shells like H.A.L.F. and
Trevelyan. They are their product. Also: Never have I
been so fertile. Also: the old hunger for books is on me: the
childish passion. So that I am very ‘happy’ as the saying
is: and excited by P.H. This diar>' shorthand comes in use-
ful. A new style — to mLx.

Sundayy November lyth

I observe, as a curious trifle in mental history’ — I should
like to take naturalist’s notes — human naturalist’s notes —
that it is the rhythm of a book that, by running in the
head, winds one into a ball; and so jades one. The rhythm
o{ P.H. (the last chapter) became so obsessive that I heard
it, perhaps used it, in every sentence I spoke. By reading
the notes for memoirs I broke this up. The rhythm of tlie
notes is far freer and looser. Two days of writing in that
rhythm has completely refreshed me. So I go back to P.H.
tomorrow. This I think is rather profound.

Saturdayy November 23rd

Having this moment finished the Pageant — or Poyntz
Hall? — (begun perhaps April 1938) my thoughts turn
well up, to write the first chapter of the next book (name-
less) Anon, it will be called. The exact narrative of this
last morning should refer to Louie’s interruption, holding
a glass jar, in whose thin milk was a pat of butter. Then
I went in with her to skim the milk off: then I look the
pat and showed it to Leonard. This was a moment of great
household triumph.

I am a little triumphant about the book. I think it’s an
interesting attempt in a new method. I think it’s more
quintessential than the others. More milk skimmed off. A
richer pat, certainly a fresher than that misery The Tears.
I’ve enjoyed writing almost every page. This book was
only (I must note) written at intervals when the pressure
was at its highest, during the drudgery of Roger. I think I

360 A WRITER’S DIARY

shall make this my scheme: if the new book can be made
to scr\-c as daily drudgery — only I hope to lessen that —
anyhow it will be a supported on fact book — then I shall
brew some moments of high pressure. 1 think of taking my
mountain top — that persistent vision — as a starling point.
Then sec what comes. If nothing, it won’t matter.

Sunday, December 22nd

How beautiful they were, those old people — I mean
father and mother — how simple, how clear, how un-
troubled. I have been dipping into old letters and father’s
memoirs. He loved her: oh and was so candid and reason-
able and transparent — and had such a fastidious delicate
mind, educated, and transparent. How serene and gay
even, their life reads to me: no mud; no whirlpools. And
so human — with the children and the little hum and song
of the nursery. But if I read as a contemporary I shall lose
my child’s vision and so must stop. Nothing turbulent;
nothing involved; no introspection.

Sunday, December 2gth

There arc moments when the sail flaps. Then, being a
great amateur of the art of life, determined to suck my
orange, off, like a wasp if the blossom I’m on fades, as it
did yesterday — I ride across the downs to the cliffs. A roll
of barbed wire is hooped on the edge, I rubbed my mind
brisk along the Newhaven road. Shabby old maids buying
groceries, in that desert road with the villas; in the wet.
And Newhaven gashed. But tire the body and the mind
sleeps. All desire to write diary here has flagged. What is
the right antidote? I must sniff round. 1 think Mme.
dc Sdvign^. Writing to be a daily pleasure. 1 detest the
hardness of old age — I feel it. I rasp. I’m tart.

The foot less prompt to meet the morning dew,

The heart less bounding at emotion new,

And hope, once crush’d, less quick to spring again.

I actually opened Mattlicw Arnold and copied these lines.

NINETEEN FORTY 361

While doing so, the idea came to me that why I dislike,
and like, so many tilings idiosyncratically now, is because
of my growing detachment from the hierarchy, the patri-
archy. When Desmond praises East Coker, and I am jealous,
I walk over the marsh saying, I am I: and must follow that
furrow, not copy another. That is the only justification
for my writing, living. How one enjoys food now: I make
up imaginary meals.

1 941

Wednesday^ January ist

On Sunday night, as I was reading about the Great fire,
in a very accurate detailed book, London was burning.
Eight of my city churclics destroyed, and tlic Guildhall.
This belongs to last year. This first day of the new year has
a slice of wind like a circular saw. This book was salvaged
from 37: I brought it down from the shop, with a handful
of Elizabethans for my book, now called Turning a Page.
A psychologist would sec that the above was written with
someone, and a dog, in the room. To add in private: I
think I will be less verbose here perhaps — but what docs
it matter, writing too many pages. No printer to consider.
No public.

Thursday^ January gth

A blank. All frost. Still frost. Burning white. Burning
blue. The elms red. I did not mean to describe, once more,
the downs in snow; but it came. And I can’t help even
now turning to look at Ashcham down, red, purple, dove
blue grey, with the cross so melodramatically against it.
What is the phrase I always remember — or forget. Look
your last on all things lovely. Yesterday Mrs. X. was
buried upside down. A mishap. Such a heavy woman, as
Louie put it, feasting spontaneously upon the grave. To-
day she buries the Aunt whose husband saw the vision at
Seaford. Their house was bombed by the bomb we heard
early one morning last week. And L. is lecturing and
arranging the room. Arc these the things that are interest-
ing? that recall: that say Stop, you arc so fair? Well, all
life is so fair, at my age. 1 mean, without much more of it
I suppose to follow. And t’other side of the hill there’ll be
no rosy blue red snow. I am copying P.H.

36a

3^3

NINETEEN FORTY-ONE
Wednesday^ January i^th

Parsimony may be the end of this book. Also shame at
my own verbosity, which comes over me when I see the
20 it is — books shuffled together in my room. Who am I
ashamed of? Myself reading them. Then Joyce is dead;
Joyce about a fortnight younger than I am. I remember
Miss Weaver, in wool gloves, bringing Ulysses in t>'pe-
script to our teatable at Hogarth House. Roger I think
sent her. Would wc devote our lives to printing it? The
indecent pages looked so incongruous: she was spinsterly,
buttoned up. And the pages reeled with indecency. I put
it in the drawer of the inlaid cabinet. One day Katherine
Mansfield came, and I had it out. She began to read,
ridiculing: then suddenly said, But there’s something in
this: a scene that should figure I suppose in the history of
literature. He was about the place, but I never saw him.
Then I remember Tom in Ottoline’s room at Garsington
saying — it was published then — how could anyone write
again after achieving the immense prodigy of the last
chapter? He was, for the first time in my knowledge, rapt,
enthusiastic. 1 bought the blue paper book, and read it
here one summer I think with spasms of wonder, of dis-
covery, and then again with long lapses of intense bore-
dom. This goes back to a prc-historic world. And now all
the gents arc furbishing up their opinions, and the books,
I suppose, take their place in the long procession.

Wc were in London on Monday. I went to London
Bridge. I looked at the river; very misty; some tufts of
smoke, perhaps from burning houses. There was another
fire on Saturday. Then I saw a cliff of wall, eaten out, at
one comer; a great corner all smashed; a Bank; the
Monument erect: tried to get a bus; but such a block I
dismounted; and the second bus advised me to walk. A
complete jam of traffic; for streets were being blown up.
So by Tube to the Temple; and there wandered in the
desolate ruins of my old squares: gashed; dismantled; the
old red bricks all white powder, something like a builder’s
yard. Grey dirt and broken windows. Sightseers; all that
completeness ravished and demolished.

364 A WRITER’S DIARY

Sunday, January 26th

A battle against depression, rejection (by Harpers of
my story and Ellen Tcrr>') routed today (I hope) by clear-
ing out kitchen; by sending the article (a lame one) to
M.S.: and by breaking into P.H. two days, I think, of
memoir writing. This trough of despair shall not, I swear,
engulf me. The solitude is great. Rodmcll life is very small
beer. The house is damp. The house is untidy. But there
is no alternative. Also days will lengthen. \Vhat I need is
the old spurt. “Your true life, like mine, is in ideas”
Desmond said to me once. But one must remember one
can’t pump ideas. I begin to dislike introspection: sleep
and slackness; musing; reading; cooking; cycling: oh and
a good hard rather rocky book — viz: Herbert Fisher.
This is my prescription.

There’s a lull in the war. Six nights without raids. But
Garvin says the greatest struggle is about to come — say in
three weeks — and every man, woman, dog, cat, even
weevil must girt their arms, their faith — and so on. It’s
the cold hour, this: before the lights go up. A few snow-
drops in the garden. Yes, I was thinking: wc live without
a future. That’s what’s queer: with our noses pressed to a
closed door. Now to write, with a new nib, to Enid Jones.

Friday, February yth

Why was I depressed? I cannot remember. Wc have been
to Charlie Chaplin. Like the milk girl wc found it boring.
I have been writing with some glow. Mrs. Thralc is to be
done before wc go to Cambridge. A week of broken water
impends.

Sunday, February i6ih

In the wild grey water after last week’s turmoil. I liked
the dinner with Dadie best. All very lit up and confiden-
tial. I liked the soft grey night at Newnham. We found
Perncl in her high ceremonial room, all polished and
spectatorial. She was in soft reds and blacks. We sat by a
bright fire. Curious flitting talk. She leaves next year.

NINETEEN FORTY-ONE 365

Then Lctchworth — the slaves chained to their typewriters,
and their drawn set faces and the machines — the incessant
more and more competent machines, folding, pressing,
gluing and issuing perfect books. They can stamp cloth to
imitate leather. Our Press is up in a glass case. No country
to look at. Very long train journeys. Food skimpy. No
butter, no jam. Old couples hoarding marmalade and
grape nuts on their tables. Conversation half whispered
round the lounge fire. Elizabeth Bowen arri\ cd two hours
after we got back, and went yesterday: and tomorrow
Vita; tlicn Enid; then perhaps I shall re-enter one of my
higher lives. But not yet.

Wednesday^ February 26th

My “higher life” is almost entirely the Elizabethan play.
Finished Pointz Hall, the Pageant; the play — finally
Between the Acts this morning.

Sunday^ March 8th

Just back from L.’s speech at Brighton. Like a foreign
town: the first spring day. Women sitting on scats. A pretty
hat in a tcashop — how fashion revives the eye! And the
shell encrusted old women, rouged, decked, cadaverous
at the tcashop. The waitress in checked cotton. No: I
intend no introspection. I mark Henry James’ sentence:
observe perpetually. Observe the oncomc of age. Observe
greed. Observe my own despondency. By that means it
becomes serviceable. Or so I hope. I insist upon spending
this time to the best advantage. I will go down with my
colours flying. This I sec verges on introspection; but
doesn’t quite fall in. Suppose I bought a ticket at the
Museum; hiked in daily and read history. Suppose I
selected one dominant figure in every age and wrote round
and about. Occupation is essential. And now with some
pleasure I find tiiat it’s seven; and must cook dinner.
Haddock and sausage meat. I think it is true that one
gains a certain hold on sausage and haddock by writing
them down.

THE END

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Chronological Bibliography of the Books of
VIRGINIA WOOLF

TITLE YEAR OF PUBLICATION

The Voyage Out *9^5

Night and Day *9i9

Kew Gardens 1 9 1 g

Monday or Tuesday 1921

Jacob's Room 1922

Mr. Bennett and Airs. Brown *924

The Common Reader: First Scries 1925

Mrs. Dalloway 1925

To the Lighthouse 1927

Orlando 1928

A Room of One's Own 1929

The Waves 1 93 1

Letter to a Young Poet 1932

The Common Reader: Second Series 1932

Flush 1933

The Years 1937

Three Guineas 1938

Roger Fry: A Biography 1 940

Between the Acts ' 1941

The Death of the Moth 1 942

A Haunted House 1 944

The Moment and other Essays 1947

The Captain's Deathbed and other Essays 1 950

367

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INDEX OF BOOKS &c
by VIRGINIA WOOLF

Beiwun the Acts, 285, 289, 291,
292, 294. 299-301, 303-5,
308, 309, 311, 334, 336,

337. 342, 344. 352, 356,
358-60, 362, 364, 365

Common Reader, The, First Series,
58-60, 64,70, 74-80,83, 101,
*43

Common Reader, The, Second
Series, 177, 178-82, 185,
*87. >93

Diary, The, 7, 13, 24, 68, 70,

83. 87, I9>

Duchess and the Jeweller, The, 286

Flush, 173, 174, 190-4, 197, 199,
206, 2o8, 212, 252, 308
FteshwaUr, A Comedy, 233, 236

Haunted House, A, 33

Here and Now, sec The Tears

Hours, The, see Mrs. Dalloway

Jacob's Room, 25, 26, 28-31,
40-3. 4^, 51-4, 57, 63,

68, 7'. 74. 77. 78, 99. >02,

106, 107, 137, 157, 190

Kew Cardens, 14, 15, 23, 30
Knock on the Door, see Three
Guineas

Letter to a Toung Poet, 178
Lighthouse, To the, 76^, 80-2,
85, 88, 89, 99-104, X06,

107, 128, 133, 136-8, 146,

>49-5>. >57. >58, >69, 174,
190, 229

Mark on the Wall, 14, 15, 23
Monday or Tuesday, 30-3, 40, 44,
45

Moths, The, see The Waves
Mrs. Dalloway, 47-9, 52-4,

57-61, 62-70, 71, 72, 74-9,
82, 83, 85, 89, 99, loi, 102,
103, 104, 106, 107, J37, 149

Next War, The, see Three Guineas
Night & Day, 10, li, 15, 19-21,
24, 45, 189, 197, 211, 308

Open Door, see Three Guiruas
Orlando, 105, 114, 11&-20, 123,
124, 128, 129, 132-40, 149,
>5>. >56. 157. >65, 189,
190, 212

Pargiters, The, see The Tears
Peryntzet Hall or Pqyntz Hall, see
Between the Acts

Reading, 48
Reviewing, 320

Roger Fry, A Biography, 230,
232, 233, 235, 236, 257-9.
261, 262, 274, 276, 288,
290, 291-3, 299-304, 307,

3<J9 ->>. 3>3-22, 324-6.

328-32, 335-44, 350, 352,

359

Room of One's Own, A, 141-5,
148, 149, 153, 165, 309

Shooting Party, The, 287
String Qjiortei, 33

Tap on the Door, see Thru Guineas
Thee Guineas, 165, 178, 179,
249. 257, 262, 268, 274-9,
281-4, 286-9, 291-5, 299,
301, 308, 309, 321, 327, 338
TufO Guineas, see Thu Guiruas

Unwritten Novel, 23, 26, 30

INDEX OF BOOKS

370

yoj>age Ou/, The, 10, ll, 15, 19,
20, 24, 45, 267

Waves, The, 102, 105, 108, 130,

« 33 . * 37 - 9 . > 42 - 54 «

162-7, 169-78, 181, 184,
189-gi, 197, 212, 215, 220,
229, 251, 252, 238, 262, 272,

304. 308

Women & Ficlian, see A Room of
One's Oum

Tears, The, 189-98, 205-12, 214,
215, a«8, 220-3, 225, 226,
228-30, 232-43, 245, 249-
83» 287, 295, 307, 319, 321,
359

1

GENERAL INDEX

Anrcp» Helen, 119, 232
Amold-Forstcr, Ka, 57
Asquith, Anthony, 55
Asquith, Margot (Lady Oxford &
Asquith), 55, 109, ago, 338

Baring, Maurice, 95, 96, 1 18
Barnett, Canon S. A., 9
Beerbohm, Max, 12a, 305-7
Bell, CUve, II, 19, ao, 56, 75,
79, 122, 130, 148
Bell, Julian, 63, iig, 169
Bell, Vanessa, 11, ao, 30, 71, 76,
119, 120, 141, 147, 328
Bennett, Arnold, 28, 57, 98, 160,
161, 169, 170, 195
Benson, Stella, 213, 214
Bevin, Ernest, 256
Birrcll, Francis, 233-5, 237
Bridges, Robert, 83
Brooke, Rupert, 3
Butts, Mary, 54
Byron, Lord, 2-4, 154, 155

Case, Janet, 284, 285
Cassis, 72, 73

Cecil, Lord David, 55, 161
Golefax, Lady, 56, 118
Congreve, William, 283, 284
Conrad, Joseph, 27, 64
Cunard, Lady, 135
Cromer, Lady, 84

Dante, 233
Defoe, 12

Dickens, Charles, 312, 313
Dickinson, G. L., 75, 76, 184,
231, 261

Dickinson, Violet, 43, 54
Don Quixote, 27
Dostoievsky, 51, 57, 131, 210

Eclipse, The, 109-13
Eliot, T. S., 12, 14, 28, 47, 50,
5*» 36*. 363

Flaubert, 269

Forster, E. M., la, 19-21, 54,
77, 80, 83, 92, 94. loi, 1 17,
176, 231, 241, 243, 244,
272. 34«

Fry, Margery, 232, 251, 253, 328
Fr>', Roger, 13, 32, 33, 119, 141,
223-5, 230, 235, 237, 251,
262, 339, 363

Gabworthy, John, 195
Garnett, David, 53
Garnett, Mrs. (Angelica Bell),
1 19. 238

Grant, Duncan, 71, 75

Hardy, Mrs. Thomas, 89-94, 95
Hardy, Thomas, 87, 89-94, 95»
122, 264

Hands, “Bogey”, 118
Harrison, Jane, 126
Hunt, Leigh, 35-7
Hutchinson, Mrs. St. John, 86
Huxley, Aldous, 238

Isherwood, Chrbtopher, 306

James, Henry, 25, 26, 40, 41, 87,
202, 203, 223, 365
Journey to Holland, Germany,
Italy, and France, 247-50
Joyce, James, 23, a8, 47, 49, 50,
5'. 363

Keynes, John Maynard (Lord
Keynes), 4, 15, 35, 75, lao,
147, 164, 221, 281
Keynes, Lydia (Lady Keynes),
75. <64

Lansbury, George, 256
Lawrence, D. H., 51, 187, 188,
2 o 6, 248

Lawrence, T. E., 93
37*

GENERAL INDEX

372

Lewis, Wyndham, 228, 229, 231,
240

Lubbock, Percy, 61

NIacaulay, T. B., 51
MacCarthy, Desmond, 26, 32,
53. 77. I3L 254, 332,
34«. 361

Mansfield, Katherine, 2, 12, 22,
57, 214, 363

Meredith, George, 279, 280
Milton, 5

Mirrlecs, Hope, 126
Mirsky, Prince, 181, 240, 241
Moore, G. E., 332
Moore, George, 86, 87, 161, 306
Morrell, Lady Ottoline, 55, 56,
289-91

Morrell, Philip, 54, 289, 290
Murry, J. Middleton, 12, 14, 63

Nicokon, Harold, no, 175

Peace celebrations, 1919, 16-19
Peacock, T. L., 42
Prinusse de CUves, La, 45

Raverat, Jacques, 72
Rhondda, Lady, 292
Richardson, Dorothy, 23
Richmond, Sir Bruce, 25
Ritchie, Lady, 8
Ritchie, Philip, 113
Robins, Elizabeth, 127
Rossetti, Christina, i
Rylands, G. W. (Dadie), 120,

364

Sackvillc-West, Victoria (Vita),
77, 107, 108, 109-14, 116,
117. *53

Sands, Ethel, i6o
Scott, Sir Walter, 42, 297
Shakespeare, 6, 65, 97, 127, 157,
210, 215-17, 252
Shaw, G. Bernard, 198
Shelley, 200, 201
Simon of Wythenshawe, Lady,
196

Smith, Logan Pearsall, 54, 77
Smyth, Ethel, 168, 255
Sophocles, 4, 230
Spender, Stephen, 245, 246, 325,
326

Spenser, Edmund, 238, 239
Stephen, J* T., 147
Stephen, Leslie, 150, 243, 244
Strachey, Lytton, 12, 15, 16, 19,

3>. 33-5. 54. 55. 5^, 78, 79»
122, 179, 160, 230, 240, 306

Tolstoy, 50, 51, 87, 109, 329
Tree, Viola, 307
Trevelyan, R. C., 81, 172, 220
Turgenev, 210

Ulyuu, 47, 49, 50

Victoria, Queen, 163

Walpole, Hugh, 127, 134, 281

Walter, Bruno, 199

War, The, 301-3, 316-20, 331-7,

342-59. 362-4

Webb, Beatrice, 15, 86, 149, 319
Webb, Sidney, 15, 149
West, Rebecca, 131, 134
Wings of the Dove, The, 40
Wolfe, Humbert, 323
Woolf, Leonard, 10, 11, 47, 71,
103, ia8, 173, 270-2, 328

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the book is kept over - time.

SRI PRATAP COLLEGE LIBRARY
SRINAGAR (Kashmir)

DATE LOANED

Class No. Book No. -

Acc. No.

This book may be kepi for 14 days. An over * due
charge will be levied at the rate of 10 Palse for each day
the book is kept over - time.